Polyphonic looks to help musicians bypass traditional record labels, focusing on digital distribution and allowing artists to retain ownership of their work.
Brian Message, manager of alternative rock band Radiohead, is helping to launch a new record label where digital distribution is the focus and artists retain the copyright of the music they create.
The new label, called Polyphonic, will be a partnership between ATC, of which Brian Message is a partner, MAMA Group, and Vancouver-based artist management firm Nettwerk Music Group,
“We will do whatever is most effective to get an artist noticed,” said Adam Driscoll, co-chief executive of the MAMA Group. “Giving an album away for free may get one million people listening to a new artist.”
Giving away an album for free is of course what Radiohead is famous for, having offered it’s album “In Rainbows” for whatever price fans wanted to pay.
Driscoll also said the label would offer newer artists a 50/50 split on profits with more established artists getting a bigger percentage.
“It has been apparent for some time that there is a real barrier to artist development – and that is a lack of available investment capital,” he added. “The launch of Polyphonic will enable us to make many more such investments in both emerging artists and those further down their career path. The contract that we have structured brings more business and creative freedom to artists and managers than has ever been offered before.”
The label is sure to be a hit with music fans looking to support artists and not greedy record labels, especially knowing they still own their work and get at least half of the profits.
Terry McBride, CEO of Nettwerk said, “Over the last few years we have found new ways to enable our management clients to take more control of their careers. We launched a number of artist imprints to allow bands to take a bigger stake in their recorded music and have engaged fully with digital distribution platforms to ensure that we get their music to their fans in as many ways as possible. Polyphonic will enable us to make further strides in enabling artists and managers to build businesses that control all aspects of the artists’ career and their assets. Having shared objectives is paramount if any business in any sector is to work. That hasn’t been readily delivered by the old industry investment model – it will be through Polyphonic.”
Hopefully it’ll be successful and serve as a model for traditional record labels to follow.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
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This is a terrific idea long overdue, and the basis of getting much right for artists everywhere. But let’s not forget that Reznor had to move back to vinyl to make sales and both he and Radiohead were made huge by a decade of industry investment long before they were able to leverage that fame. Can a new artist exist for very long on free without a job? I wonder.
If the music is released digitally (and we already know pirates won’t pay), this may prove an empty experiment in trust and faith, but with no real compensation. Exposure alone will prove hard to monetize because there will be no cash to underwrite expensive touring. It’s either that or $300-$500 a ticket and who will afford that? Touring has always been underwritten by album sales and anyone in touring already knows this.
I think it is also fair to say Pirates don’t care if they are trusted or not–it’s in the pride of the culture– and building faith is the provenance of those who pay the price for what they take. Payment must be required in some fashion or the so-called “fans” of new artists won’t genuinely underwrite anything or anyone. They’ll just take end enjoy zeropaid as they have for 10 years.
Will time prove this out?
I think so. We’ll see.
Good luck to the artists.
Just more demonstration of your idiocy.
Your comment, that is.
This is an awesome idea, finally. If good bands go for this I will definately be on board.
I paid 25.00 for the free “In Rainbows” just because of how it was released. The album was the worst piece of crap I have ever heard and have since deleted it but the concept would work better than what we have now. I would have paid for NIN that way also but honestly I am not a fan of theirs either. It just seems the wrong bands are willing to do this so it ends up looking bad when they don’t make enough money but the reality is most don’t want their music so that is why profits are low. There is enough people willing to pay for a good product not owned by the RIAA and free from DRM. Create that atmosphere and people will start buying again.
I love it when people poo poo ideas like this. Go ahead and convince me a record label deserves 90% of an artist’s take. A good friend of mine was with Sony and hardly made anything after 3 albums. Digital release is cheap, fans decide whats good, the money will come. Anyone says otherwise has a vested interest to object, so suck it.
I had an idea of something like this for over a year now. Nice to see someone else able to roll the idea out sooner.
It was only a matter of time, I suspect this is something similar to what NIN is working on. This is the start of a friendlier music industry, one that I think my fans are likely to support.
“Poo poo” and “suck it”, now there’s a intelligent post.
Artists don’t need labels if they have the time, talent, know how and initiative, the seed money, contacts, transportation and facilities to provide for themselves the wide range of pr, promotion, marketing, recording and touring services that labels have traditionally supplied in the past.
But for the sake of this thread, let’s imagine that they have everything in that list, plus songwriting, plus part writing and arranging, plus assembling back-up and conducting and live performance abilities as well. Let’s also assume they have the experience to mount effective campaigns to get their name, music and image into the public eye and ear to the degree necessary to make a lasting impact. After all, nobody buys a ticket to a concert no one has ever heard of.
An album cut on Garageband with a homemade YouTube video is not equivalent to getting the cover of a national magazine or an appearance on the Tonight Show, or live performance and interview on morning radio, or the extraordinary complexity and expense of designing and planning, hiring and executing a live tour. Truth is, when we are honest about this, what musician or band can do this alone? Very precious few. And they won’t buy a house and raise a family on T-shirt revenue, either. So what’s missing in the equation?
Paying fans. Fans who PAY every time for the merchandise they take, the life’s blood and foundation of every business on the planet, including a music career.
The big hypocrisy among piracy is that “exposure” pays bills and allows artists to live a respectable life, or as Hahaiah intones above, “money will come.”
Except as we all know, it doesn’t. And it hasn’t. Not yet for a decade. And it’s still not “coming”, even to the point where pirates continue to believe that unpaid possession is still their right and circumventing technology, law and its enforcement is somehow noble and good, as they cripple the musicians they claim to love and support.
I couldn’t give a damn about the labels, let them die if they don’t bring real value and the musicians stop signing with them. But what you are doing to the musicians themselves is criminal, and to the motion picture makers, and the game coders, and the book writers. ANYONE who works in digital and is pirated instead of being paid.
Everyone of us here knows full well that for over 50 years the labels and their pay-for-whatever-you-take model has enriched tens of thousands of musicians and bands, and thousands more beyond their wildest hopes and dreams. No piracy model has come close to that. They’ve also provided solid, working class salaries for literally hundreds of thousands of support personnel in recording, promotion, touring, graphics. No pirate contributes that either.
True fans put their money where their mouth is, so when an influx of cash from music fans washes over good non-label music like a tsunami—thousands and thousands of indie acts— and allows indie musicians and their support workers to live respectable lives like the rest of non-digital workers, only then will pirates have made their case. But until that happens, I hope government and industry ratchets up law, surveillance, loss of privacy, punishment and penalty to protect our artists until you fucking cry. Because for what Jammie, Joel and the rest of you are doing to the digital arts all over the world, you richly deserve every bit of it.
Man is your vision clouded. You just dont get it. Music is now FREE, you have to convince people to buy it, just like any other ordinary business.
Talk about ivory tower.
Food is ‘free’ if you steal it.
Music is devalued by the theft, but it is not free- even though a lot of people steal it.
There is no way to convince anyone to buy something that they can take so easily and tell themselves they are freaking Robin Hood.
And that is why the internet is coming down around our ears.
Thanks alot.
Non Sequitur.
You are an freaking retard. Everything single statement that you wrote is both logically false and a blatant lie that uses incorrect word definitions.
Just more demonstration of your idiocy.
“logically false”
Should read
“logically incorrect”
Congratulations, you are a model music fan, Ford be proud. You know there was a time when music was created not for consumption, how inefficient is that? These days we have a model system, were the lower caste consumes music, before people never through of monetizing ideas. Even more genius, to consume that music requires electronics, which spurs more economic force. In order to ensure a constant purchase of electronics we even enacted technological locks and upgrades that renders old players obsolete. This has ensured optimal consumption, allowing for more work for the lower castes and stronger GDP.
Sam:
Glad to see you, ol’ pal!
It’s genuinely refreshing to find an oasis of unchanging sameness in this chaotic world.
1. You’re still recycling the RIAA’s propaganda bullshit about “pirates” just being a bunch of lazy freeloaders (or was your term “shoplifting pottymouths?”)
2. You’re still passing yourself off as some kind of “advocate” for artists, but undoubtedly nobody realizes that you’re actually a fashion-show designer and lighting-guy. I never did figure out how you’re figuring to “leverage” IP related to lighting-design and “showcase ventilation”, but hey.
3. You’re still trying to piss on anything outside of the RIAA’s standard model. Lessee here — Torrentfreak, p2pnet, here, Wired.com — for a high-powered capitalist business tycoon type of guy, you seem to spend a fair amount of time lurking around on p2p and technology-related boards, regurgitating RIAA blather. Weren’t you the guy who said the RIAA “extorts” you every time you want to use “their” music in your fashion-shows? (Ezee.se — go look it up, folks)
But hey, I shouldn’t expect you to actually learn anything, because you’ve stated on other boards that stuff like the history/purpose of copyright law is “ultimately beside the point.” You also used the phrase “sacred right of property”, so it’s understandable that you’d be completely unable to understand any other viewpoint.
Just ignore him, folks — nothing to see here
You say:
“An album cut on Garageband with a homemade YouTube video is not equivalent to getting the cover of a national magazine or an appearance on the Tonight Show, or live performance and interview on morning radio, or the extraordinary complexity and expense of designing and planning, hiring and executing a live tour.”
It’s true: the new “free” music world created in napster’s wake cannot propel musicians into fame like the old media of television and radio. But you must realize that television and radio are dying. For the first time in history, adults watch more tv than young people. Everything will go to the Internet in time.
We shape our tools as our tools shape us, and society is shaped by the dominant technologies of the day. The written word extended our memory, and highways drove us to the suburbs. The internet has likewise reorganized society to become decentralized, as digitally empowered amateurs usurp the role of celebrity.
You remember a time where tv made superstars of a select few. The internet is unstoppable, and so is it’s tendency to decentralize. There are no superstars – the internet can’t support them.
The Beatles, Mike Jackson, Elvis and the like were household names because they achieved stardom on media where a few broadcast stations served many; where participation was low. TV created a national culture where everyone was tuning in to the same shows. Now that everyone is their own publisher, nobody can be watched all at once.
Youtube killed the video star. The fame and money you are looking for dried up. Artists are now faced with a choice: fight the internet, or learn to live with less. Give up dreams of superstardom and embrace being adored by a small crowd.
Artists like me have chosen the latter, because we know that some fights can’t be won.
“”Poo poo” and “suck it”, now there’s a intelligent post.”
That’s etiquette, dumb ass; intelligence does not require formalities. In fact, you couldn’t understand anything about real intelligence.
“Paying fans. Fans who PAY every time for the merchandise they take, the life’s blood and foundation of every business on the planet, including a music career.”
Wow, you are more annoying than malgre.
“The big hypocrisy among piracy is that “exposure” pays bills and allows artists to live a respectable life, or as Hahaiah intones above, “money will come.””
Where did you get the idea that ““exposure” pays bills and allows artists to live a respectable life”? Making things up again?
“[...] And it’s still not “coming”, even to the point where pirates continue to believe that unpaid possession is still their right …”
Whoa, whoever said anything about possessions? For some hypocrite like you that preaches about credibility, you desperately need to stop making things up.
“… and circumventing technology, law and its enforcement is somehow noble and good, as they cripple the musicians they claim to love and support.”
You don’t “circumvent technology” to download, you know. When has anyone circumvented the law and it’s enforcement? Who ever considered this “somehow noble and good”? In what way have musicians been ‘crippled’ due to mere downloading? Can you even reinforce your arguments with ordinary citation, for credibility?
“I couldn’t give a damn about the labels, let them die if they don’t bring real value and the musicians stop signing with them.”
Using a masking topic statement? How silly.
“But what you are doing to the musicians themselves is criminal, and to the motion picture makers,”
All utter fallacy.
“and the game coders, and the book writers.”
You are so naive in these fields that it’s not funny.
“ANYONE who works in digital and is pirated instead of being paid.”
Can you be more specific and can you even confirm any of this? Who do you mean by “ANYONE”? What do you mean by “pirated”? Have you ever considered that this “ANYONE” can be both pirated and paid? Chance is not that strict.
“Everyone of us here knows full well …”
We are not in the same class to be designated in the same subject.
“… that for over 50 years the labels and their pay-for-whatever-you-take model has enriched tens of thousands of musicians and bands, and thousands more beyond their wildest hopes and dreams. No piracy model has come close to that.”
50 years? Then that’s because everything was analog. Your point is rendered useless by that fact.
“They’ve also provided solid, working class salaries for literally hundreds of thousands of support personnel in recording, promotion, touring, graphics. No pirate contributes that either.”
Hundreds of thousands? Can you even verify those numbers? Do you even know what amounts were those “working class salaries”? Or is speculation part of your writing in your job?
“True fans put their money where their mouth is, …”
Confirmation that you have a linear mind in a pea-brain.
“… so when an influx of cash from music fans washes over good non-label music like a tsunami—thousands and thousands of indie acts— and allows indie musicians and their support workers to live respectable lives like the rest of non-digital workers, only then will pirates have made their case.”
Non Sequitur. This has always been about you equating downloading as physical theft for you.
“But until that happens, I hope government and industry ratchets up law, surveillance, loss of privacy, punishment and penalty to protect our artists until you fucking cry.”
Ordinary downloading is never anywhere near in severity to a violent crime, imbecilic fool. “Fucking cry” while failing to attempt to represent artists, as you bare no qualities of an artist.
“Because for what Jammie, Joel and the rest of you are doing to the digital arts all over the world, you richly deserve every bit of it.”
No wonder why your content sucked so much; all those delusional ideals, lack of intelligence, and utter disregard to human factors could never have produced anything consumers would have wanted in the first place.
Sorry SAM you are so full of shit, it is not funny.
I thought maybe you were a serious advocate for the interest of creators. Clearly you are nothing more than a troll, looking for a fight with everyone.
Why would anyone listen to you ever, you start out all noble and then call everyone a thief and insult! Good way to win support!
It is clear to me now you do not have honest intentions and concern for any creator of anything. What ever, call me what ever you want and call the world thieves, soon enough no one will listen to anything from you that even might be remotely good. You imply you are for creators yet you do more damage than good and I`m sure the creators do not want you speaking for them.
If you are serious and not just trolling change your attitude and you just may win some understanding and respect. Until you do this you are nothing more than another troll.
Here’s my views on all of this. There’s been a longstanding myth, at least locally, that there’s few artists out there who are not part of top charts. If you’re not part of the top lists, then you’re not getting anywhere.
This has been the result of a monopolistic approach of the major record labels for years. The reason the major record labels haven’t signed hardly any innovative artist for the last several years is because of the percieved risk of change. If you look at shows like American Idol, notice how the singers in the top ten sound practically identical. There’s only one sound that the majors are looking for. As a result, music hasn’t really changed in the last few years and, thus, numerous people are sick of it. There’s a huge push by the major record labels to block out any competition, so that even when the music sucks, it sells because nothing else is on the shelf.
As a result of the label monopolies, real talent has been piling up with nowhere to go. The internet has proven to be a great medium for that talent to go any literally hundreds of thousands of artists have taken to the internet just for an artistic outlet. Look at NewGrounds Audio Portal or Soundclick for two examples of this happening.
The labels see this movement as a threat because new business models are emerging as a result. The labels are finding themselves cut out of the picture. Their solution is to push the idea that the internet is nothing more than a vehicle for downloading RIAA owned music. This is perhaps the only thing that has worked throughout the last several years. If the majors can convince enough people that the only reason go onto the internet is to download copyright infringing material owned by them, they can impose more and more rules to put the squeeze on their competition – artists.
With the internet, anyone can “make it” and they don’t have to “make it” by being on every top chart in existance. In fact, they only have to be known by a couple thousand hard core fans to “make it”. That bar is, by magnitude, lower than what is set by the majors where you have to sell some 50,000 to 150,000 records to break even.
If 100 people paid 10 bucks for free music every week, that’s enough for an artist to earn a halfways decent living because it’s straight up profit – all that on top of additional merch put forth. We aren’t even getting into the touring thing here. The only thing that’s needed is some way of recording the song (something that has dropped in price significantly over the years) and an internet connection. That is what scares the s*** out of the labels because it’s good for everyone except them.
“If 100 people paid 10 bucks for free music every week”
Dude, think about what you just said – it’s not free if they pay for it. Amazon mp3’s may be free in the sense of no DRM, you are free to use them how you want for legal personal use, but they cost money.
Also, selling a hundred a week is hard to do for a free record. Trent reznor put a record up for free and out of the 100,000 dolwnloads he got over a six month period, HE GOT PAID FOR ONE PERCENT. That’s a guy with a huge fucking following.
Also, a couple thousand hardcore fans is actually hard to accomplish. By hardcore, I mean people who buy something every year. There are a lot fo bands who have that not necessarily chart busters either – but they’ve spent twenty years in the business and had association with a lot of people who invested in them.
Look, it’s a nice way to think about things it’s just not real. It hasn’t worked for anyone.
Your argument might be persuasive were it true. The album Trent release for Saul Williams got 154 000 downloads and 1 in 6 people paid 5$ for it. Now looking at the wikipedia entry to get more information about Saul Williams you get a clearer picture of the situation. Here is a quote
“It was announced at Nin.com that, as of January 2, 2008, two months since its release, 154,449 people had downloaded NiggyTardust. Of that number, 28,322 people chose to pay the asked price of $5 USD ($141,610 USD Total). In comparison, Saul’s self-titled album has sold 30,000 copies since its release in 2004.[5]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inevitable_Rise_and_Liberation_of_NiggyTardust!
So in reality his album sold under the digital distribution model as well as some of his past work. Saul is a fringe artist, not a mainstream sound. Personally I never heard of Saul Williams, and to be honest listening to it now, there are thousands of similar creative commons tracks, so why would people pay to listen to his work?
See where you and many other defenders of copyright fail is that you assume that music should automatically fetch a certain price, and produce a certain level of profit for artist. But 90% of artist don’t make a living off music, and never will. The internet has just abolished the monopoly that is copyright and reintroduced free market to music, and the real value of music is not the over inflated sales of yesterday.
Well, drew, don’t hold your breath… all the old hippies that thought the net was some mystical force and more than just another communication medium are retiring, so all I am saying is, don’t hold your breath.
But thanks for the info. Seems to me all those people who did pay for it could have bought the record for 5.99 from amazon, and probably would have because they liked the music, not becuase they were motivated by altruism. The people who didn’t pay either liked it and didn’t pay or didn’t like it – in which case there was no need for them to have it. I heard the record and think it was nice of trent to do saul a favor. I think trent was right to be disappointed that only one sixth of the people who took the music had the decency to pay.
The thing is, people taking something for free against the will of the owners doesn’t really figure into free market economics. If you think it’s too expensive, don’t buy it. The price will go down as low as it can. A lot of times quality goes down too – especially if people need to make more and more just to feed their families.
“If you think it’s too expensive, don’t buy it. The price will go down as low as it can.”
NOT TRUE! I’ve seen more than enough real-life examples where the price of a product does NOT go down even though it can and should, and eventually the firm goes out of business (or at the very least production of that particular product stops completely) as a result of the owner’s greed.
Sure, it’s never big enough to make the news, but I have seen more than enough such cases to know that you vastly underestimate human greed. It’s especially annoying when the price does not go down, but the quality does (and for no reason, too).
So they go out of business because they can’t or won’t lower prices. How does this affect you? Are you so greedy that you just take what you want anyway?
Desire has little to do with greed.
First you write
“If you think it’s too expensive, don’t buy it. The price will go down as low as it can.”
Then
“So they go out of business because they can’t or won’t lower prices. How does this affect you?”
Which shows that you are indeed hypocritical. And finally write this ad hominem:
“Are you so greedy that you just take what you want anyway?”
You assume that shadowblack is going to download, or in your view, ’steal’ it? Your an imbecile.
Also, yes, malgre, I’m back.
You’re*
“Pirates won’t pay?”
I refer to studies back all the way to 2005 which indicated that filesharers spent four times as much money on media consumption – concerts, CD’s, movies, DVD’s – as people who did not use filesharing protocols.
In other words, Pirates DO pay, four times as much as the rest of you cheapskates who won’t support the artists.
I remember way back in the days when people used to make music because it was their artform and the way they expressed their views, thoughts and emotions. Now it’s just a job like any other. Douchebag of all douchebag musicians gene simmons said it best: Because people were copying their music, he no longer has “the desire to go back into the studio”.
Speaking of gene, I was a huge kiss fan back in the days and bought almost 20 cassette tapes of their corporate rock. Those tapes haven’t held up very well to the test of time. They are all warped and shit, so will kiss give me a refund and take it back or replace it with a cd? I mean I paid for it and all. He has my money but I don’t have the music I paid for due to the shitty format that didn’t last through the years.
“I paid 25.00 for the free “In Rainbows” just because of how it was released. The album was the worst piece of crap I have ever heard and have since deleted it but the concept would work better than what we have now.”
Strange, I loved it.
Those of you looking for an example of an artist who CAN make this distribution model work need only to look at Jonathan Coulton.
This guy releases music through Creative Commons licensing (with the exception of one song in a well-known video game) and is supported by his fanbase to the tune of a 6-figure salary with freely-downloadable music. He tours his balls off and puts on a great live show, he sells actual physical CDs and DVDs as well as digital files.. but most importantly he owns and controls his work.
Can you succeed as an artist in this new age with this new distribution model? Yes, but first you have to be damn good.
There is one thing I would like to add to that. You have to be average, not necessarily good. The reason for this is that the major recording industry has lowered the bar of quality so much over the years. Average to crap tunes still fetches for millions in the dying model because some in the masses just assume it’s good.
Surprisingly, the same is starting to be true for the DnB scene as well. You just need forward thinking ideas at this point.
Support good music. Check out http://www.LeVarThomas.com
It is good music, Just bought it all. My wife and daughter will love it. Thanks for posting the link
Coconut1967 awesome his music is great. They don’t make R&B like that anymore.
I love this idea and would happily follow its flow!
If it came to light and managed to rise to a day, quite possibly it could mean waking up in the morning and checking the “subscription” to said label and getting a bowl full of music that borders on the fringe-of-pop (no mullet jokes!) and beyond.
Finding one tune in fifty that is truely unique, magical, soul lifting and full of the artists message is much more important to me than ten songs that are “OK”.
Taking music where it should go, to our ears, taking the money where it should go, to the artists endeavours!
To quote good ol Sammie :3
“Artists don’t need labels if they have the time, talent, know how and initiative.”
The know how being, how to make music; everything else is optional and will come to pass as it should .