MixedContent

Seattle band Harvey Danger have decided to release their new album for free download via bittorrent (Shameless plug for Kris’s new book). I love watching how indy artists are starting to use all these new tools to take control of their own music careers. From the press release:

“In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as “illegal” file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little…, available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We’re not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we’re putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends.”

I can appreciate how scary this must be for an independent artist. From Jeff’s blog:

“So there it is. I suppose personally this ranks among the biggest gambles I’ve ever made in my life; all my savings went into the album’s production. So even if the plan fails miserably, at least I can say I put my money where my mouth is; it’s one thing to give away something that someone else (i.e. a label) paid for, and it’s another thing entirely to give away something you paid for… We’re not a bunch of fake Marxists. We’re just trying to be smart capitalists so we can sustain our lives as musicians.”

But Jeff, forget the cost associated with giving away music (you paid for) for free. Focus instead on the dollar value associated with being mentioned on Boing Boing and every corner of the internet! I would love to see some stats on how many people donate money or buy an actual CD, compared to the number of individuals who download the album. But my gut feeling is that this is a very viable way for independent artists to distribute and monetize their music. Hope the experiment works!

Thanks to Gus for pointing me to this, as well as many other interesting articles in the past.