Should You Give Your Music Away?

When the New Music Business Model Video was recorded in early 2007, I suggested sometime in the future consumers would get most of their music for free and money would be collected and distributed to songwriters, music producers and music publishers, etc. from b2b (business 2 business) song licensing. A number of sensitive songwriters, recording artist and music producers often attempted to argue me down while at music conferences. Argue as they would I'd remind them that many music fans were already getting music for free, it wasn't up for debate. The goal now was figuring out how to make money online and off from music fans (consumers) and businesses that participated in using music for pleasure and industry.

Lovewhip an independent record artist & band seems to agree with me "...you can't control the flow of music. You have to get used to the idea that people will get your music for free and you can't stop it. You can make it as easy as possible to get it from your own site and turn them into a long time fan who will come to shows and buy other merch. ...It's a hard pill to swallow but the sooner you start thinking about this new paradigm of free music the more you can use it to your advantage.

In other unrelated/related music business news Sony/BMG drops Music Copy Protection.

TOKYO — Sony BMG will start selling music downloads in the copy-protection-free MP3 format later this month in North America, as even the last holdout among the major record labels crumbled to the growing trend.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment said in a statement that some digital albums will be available through a new download service called Platinum MusicPass starting Jan. 15 in the U.S. and late January in Canada.

A Sony Corp. official in Tokyo, requesting anonymity because he is not authorized to speak officially for Sony BMG, confirmed the company's move toward the MP3 format in the U.S., but said that similar moves aren't in the works in Japan and elsewhere.

Music files in the MP3 format can be copied to computers and burned onto CDs without restriction. They can also be played on most digital music players, including Apple Inc.'s iPod, as well as on personal computers. Read the full story here.

This story is not to say that Sony/BMG is giving music away, but they are making it easier for people to pass it along. Hmmmmmmmmmmm