Musician who gave away her music for free and made a million dollars from it

Riaan-Combrink

Did a quick search to see if this has been posted before ... sorry if I missed it.

Amanda Palmer got frustrated with her label and decided to give her music away for free, trusting fans would pay for it if they believed in what she was doing. Her approach not only challenges the mainstream thought about piracy, but innovatively tries to deal with the issue of how do you get paid for making music in the file-sharing era. Finally, she reflects on redefining (or reclaiming) the role of the artist vis-a-vis the community.

http://www.upworthy.com/an-8-foot-tall-woman-is-destroying-the-entire-music-industry?g=2

AlanRatcliffe

She makes some interesting points (and I've seen some of the things she does also done by other, local musicians), but something tells me that this approach would not work for a lot of artists - it takes a particular personality type to be able to be that open, sharing and trusting.

On a related topic, here's an excellent article I was reading yesterday that seems to confirm what I've suspected for a while - that the new sales models are even worse than the old models:
Meet the New Boss, Worse than the old boss

Riaan-Combrink

Alan Ratcliffe wrote She makes some interesting points (and I've seen some of the things she does also done by other, local musicians), but something tells me that this approach would not work for a lot of artists - it takes a particular personality type to be able to be that open, sharing and trusting.

Alan Ratcliffe wrote On a related topic, here's an excellent article I was reading yesterday that seems to confirm what I've suspected for a while - that the new sales models are even worse than the old models:
Meet the New Boss, Worse than the old boss

Will check it out.

Stoffeltoo

Watched the video. This is some brave woman to take on the establishment.
She makes very good points on trust and using online networks for her shows and asking for support. Something many artists will not do. I must admit that some of her ideas have seeded some thoughts on communication in the work place. Good for her and I do like her music style?

AlanRatcliffe

I see she's married to Neil Gaiman, BTW.

epictring

My new band is taking the exact same approach on our release of 2014. First time I'm doing it this way. We will be doing a lot of marketing and promotion regarding what we are doing and will be asking our fans for help while giving our release away for free.

Great talk

IceCreamMan

giving away stuff for free may work in some cases an has worked in some cases , ie this particular case and the Radiohead case however for the most part its not going to work...sadly that's the facts.....

ppl place an intrinsic value on things....if they get it free they value it as worthless....its an interesting view of the human psyche......

like the old joke where the chap had a fridge on his lawn with the sign "free to anyone who collects"

2 weeks later the fridge is still there so he changes tack ...." fridge for sale R200-00"

the fridge gets stolen within 2 hours.

domhatch

yup, i've seen stuff on amanda palmer before. i think alan is correct in that it takes a particular personality type to get away with this.

to quote the 'fridge' example. in australia, well, melbourne specifically, if you don't want something usable, you just put it on the sidewalk, and it'll get taken by someone who can take it. it doesn't even have to work in some instances, just be of some kind of use to someone. but you don't get paid. then, at a specific point in time - and i can't remember when exactly - city services come around and remove what's left.

i don't necessarily believe ms palmer's is a new model that'll take over the world and fix everything. but for those for whom it works, big ups and booyahs!

cheers
dh|