Though I have not taken the time to read his first book, The Long Tail, I have more than the highest form of respect for Chris Anderson as a writer and journalist. I think it is because I am such a nerd when it comes to looking at the small stuff, and notice that it has huge potential. See my fascination of Freakonomics – here, and NETFLIX – here.
With his new book, released the Autumn of 2009, Chris Anderson takes a look at FREE, as a philosophy, the history of it, and how it has come to be a new form of how one can make money. He even goes as far as to give good example of how YOU as a business owner can make money buy sell your product for nothing.
I know that my views are not shared by many, but here’s my view of the whole “Give it to me for free, and I might pay you for it” scenario.
The minute after I had finished listening to the book, I decided to buy it. Thus, Chris Anderson will get what he deserves for writing the book, even though that was not his intention. For him, you can download the book from iTunes, and never ever give him another dime. He believes that if the book is good, people can hire him to come to there country and talk about it – and for that, he’ll charge. I agree!
The same might be the way that the music industry should look upon themselves. The artist gives away it’s music for anyone to listen to it, and if people like it, the artist might be able to come to their country and/or city to play. Chris Anderson shares this view – which is nice to hear. The generation of young people today are more and more interested in seeing the artist, then just to listen to it – seeing is believing. What could be one of the reasons why the industry does not like this way, is that most contracts in the industry gives the record company money for the number of records sold, and the number of times the song is played on the radio. The artist makes it’s money when “creating the music” – kind of like a worker at the mill. As long as s/he grinds the corn it gets paid. But it will not get money when the company sells the flower at the store – unless the worker is entitled to a bonus, but that’s different.So when the artist plays his/her songs live – it gets paid from the number of tickets sold. The record labels get close to none.
I will not go any further into how the music industry should change their point of view, but I have a plan.
If you want to hear it, you can reach me via my e-mail, but it’s going to cost you to hear it.
Download Chris Anderson’s book as a podcast here – from iTunes.