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Surprises

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Jul 18th 2005 2:45am





Launching Your Music Career On eBay

from the how-much-for-the-singer-in-the-window? dept

One of the potential business models for the music industry that people have discussed is something of a patronage model, where musicians don't actually release music until they've found supporters willing to pay for the costs. It appears that one aspiring musician in India made a slight, internet-age, modification on this plan. Recognizing the power of selling something on eBay as a PR tactic to get more attention, he sold the rights to a fraction of his lifetime royalties on eBay. Apparently, he found enough people to take a chance and finance his album. Of course, as he notes, the problem with doing things this way is that he doesn't have the promotional force of a record label behind him to push the album in order to try to increase the royalties that these patrons would get.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Argument for perpetual copyrights?

    identicon
    acb, Jul 18th, 2005 @ 3:46am

    This looks like an argument for copyright extension: if copyrights didn't last indefinitely, these rights would not be valuable enough for such a model.

    Of course, one could extend this model to other situations where people need funding to get started. Perhaps eventually we'll see college students selling shares in their future incomes?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: Argument for perpetual copyrights?

    icon
    Mike Linksvayer (profile), Jul 18th, 2005 @ 8:12am

    No, the present value of revenues collected decades from now is the same for anyone (modulo different individual discount rates) -- a tiny fraction of the value of revenues collected now. Participation by investors doesn't change the arguments for or against perpetual copyright at all.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: Argument for perpetual copyrights?

    identicon
    acb, Jul 18th, 2005 @ 9:22am

    The "long tail" argument (borne out by observations of the value of back-catalogue sales) suggests that the post-peak revenue, while smaller than the peak revenue, is not insignificant. And the BBC article itself states that the length of copyrights exceeding the immediate needs of the artist's income gives this model its value.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: Argument for perpetual copyrights?

    identicon
    taylor, Jul 18th, 2005 @ 12:57pm

    actually, there already exists a loan system (www.myrichuncle.com, set up by Michael Robertson of MP3.com fame) whereby the student applies for a loan and agrees to pay back an annual % of future income, independent of the total future income.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Hey, Great News !

    identicon
    Coolz0r, Jul 22nd, 2005 @ 4:39am

    Yeah. Great news.

    http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2005/07/21/how-to-launch-your-music-career -through-ebay/

    amongst many others. I just thought it'd be nice to mention it at least once, but I steal a lot of content. :) Thanks !

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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