One of the things I missed at Anthrocon this weekend were the consequences of leaving a spur-of-the-moment comment on the Wolfire Games blog. The dire, dire consequences.
Just…watch this video…
I am so, sorry, John Graham. I never meant for this to happen. Please forgive me.
I’ve received some skepticism, sometimes based on first-hand accounts, about my theory that pirates will donate to support you if you just ask and make it easy for them. It’s based on the idea that no, they actually won’t.
This strikes me as unlikely. No pirate, hell, no person has ever publicly stated that they don’t believe people who work so hard to entertain us should receive no money in return, and that they’d certainly give money to an artist they support. I don’t think this isn’t happening because all of those people are lying. I think it’s happening because of a lack of education.
The phenomenon of indie artists putting a big “donate” button on their site is a relatively new one. It’s a reflex for many people to buy a movie from Amazon or buy a game from Steam. Donation is a bit more disjointed and confusing, and not everyone knows where to go. If it was downloaded from The Pirate Bay, there’s even more disconnect from the creator’s website. That’s what my new For a Living project is looking to remedy.
Go to the project’s page to download a graphic that you can place in your movie, game, or other form of visual media. It’s like an FBI Warning, except not about how stuff is illegal and instead about how food costs money.
I’m not sure how the same could be applied to music. Podcasts have audible credits and copyright information, so it’s an easy translation. For a music album, doing this on every song would get annoying. Fortunately, a lot of other factors are making it much easier for indie musicians to benefit from file-sharing, so there’s not a lot to worry about.
Piracy happens for two reasons: people don’t have a lot of money, and 90% of everything is crap (or DRM’d, but that makes it crap). Therefore, by getting everything free, you won’t lose any of your hard-earned cash on that 90%. Unfortunately, because no money is going to the creators of the other 10%, they won’t continue making things for everyone to download free.
Large corporations have come up with a solution: go into the manufacturing business. They are now Digital Rights Manufacturing companies, creating new rights for themselves using a revolutionary new process known as “fellating lawmakers”. Their revenue stream comes from licensing these digital rights at high prices, and suing people who don’t pay. But it’s too expensive for indie artists and creators, and it doesn’t win you any friends.
Because of this situation, indie game developers are doing horrible things like experimenting with in-game advertising. I’m not saying this as a knee-jerk reaction to the horrors of annoying ads bombarding us. I’m saying this as a knee-jerk reaction to the horrors of depending on the advertising industry for revenue.
Think about it: TV series with devoted fanbases are cancelled because they don’t make enough ad revenue. Millions of websites depending on Google AdSense would go broke if their accounts were inexplicably terminated (I’ve read about this happening before but can’t find a link detailing it. Maybe I’m typing the wrong words into Goo…gle…wait a minute). And remember when GameSpot fired Jeff Gertsmann when their advertisers didn’t like his reviews? For people who call themselves indie, it’s not very indie-pendent.
The best way to be indie in any medium, be it game development, filmmaking, music, writing…hell, even running a business in general, the only party you should be depending on is individual people. Some may know them as “customers”, or “users” who “generate content” on your “social media application”, but let’s avoid such corporate-speak, as it makes baby Jesus cry and is killing America. But there’s still the problem of how exactly to make money on individual people anymore. In a world where art is hard work and people don’t seem to want to pay for it, one man will stand up to explain his opinion. That man is me. Reread the previous two sentences in a movie trailer guy voice, then click the jump-cut-continue-reading thingy:
Continue reading ‘The Indie Paradox: Paying Rent Without Depending On Corporations’
Gratuitous picture of Matthew Ebel's FACE.
I’d heard of Mr. Ebel before, having encountered a song he did back in 2001 called “In the MUCK” (MP3). It’s about how the real world is annoying, so let’s all turn ourselves into furry animals because that’s more fun (specifically on FurryMUCK, but subtly enough so that people who have never heard of or joined it can relate to the song. I loved the song, but for some ridiculous reason I’d never bothered to do more research into him. Until now.
Despite being active in the furry community as an osprey (you see, even though ospreys have feathers, we still say they’re “furries” with “fursonas,” because “featheries” wouldn’t imply the same group, and “anthropomorphic animal enthusiasts” is too long, and oh whatever), most of Ebel’s music isn’t as overtly animalistic, but that’s probably a good thing because having to throw in an obligatory animal reference in every song would get old. All of it is just as catchy and awesome, with a style that’s like Jonathan Coulton meets Dangerous Kid and hints of Banooba; comparing him to a signed artist would be so corporate and anti-indie of me, as well as less accurate, but let’s say Jack’s Mannequin with some Ben Folds-y wit if you insist. And he’s awesome.
I got his latest album, Goodbye Planet Earth, which mixes in a good deal of electronic stuff and Hitchhiker’s Guide references. The second track, “I Just Want To Fall In Love” (MP3) is ridiculously catchy and will not get out of my head. Gahhhh. =D
He’s also taken a page from Jonathan Coulton and written a song based on one of Valve’s games (although his effort wasn’t actually commissioned by Valve for use during their end credits), a Team Fortress 2-inspired song called “I Blame The Spy”. As of this writing, unfortunately, the full version of the song is only available to people who subscribe to his premium music. Kind of an odd decision given that he could get several zillion new fans if video game blogs pointed towards it, something they’d be more likely to do if the whole song were free. Matthew, I know you’ll read this eventually because you follow me on Twitter, so fix that.
But all in all, you want Matthew Ebel in your ears. He gives very good aural pleasure.
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No, Indie Musicians, You Do Not “Deserve” To Be Paid For Your Work
Every time I see some down-on-his-luck independent musician ranting about how nobody wants to pay for music anymore, and how it’s hurting their livelihood as well as the labels, and why are people such cheap bastards who won’t pay me, and blah blah blah, it makes me very angry.
Yeah, I feel your pain, guys. People don’t pay for movies anymore either, and if they did I’d have a clear-cut business plan that anyone could understand, and I’d be rolling in investment money by now and going full speed ahead on a bajillion-dollar live-action-CGI-blend-extravaganza about space pirates or something. But that’s just not the way the world works anymore.
Now, I understand the need for a coping mechanism. Blame the cheap bastards who just want to download all of your hard work that you worked so hard on for weeks and months and years. Maybe they’ve got a point when they say the big record companies shouldn’t keep making money, but you, nooooo, you’re indie! You make less money than a part-time fry cook at McDonald’s, and if people steal from you, then they’re bad, bad people! You deserve to be paid for your hard work!
No you don’t. You’re indulging in your own creative vision; nobody asked you to, and you’re not providing a service to anybody. You are creating all the pretty music in your head because you feel like it, and you are not inherently entitled to anybody’s appreciation and certainly not monetary compensation.
If you’re good, though, and people like your music, then you don’t have to tell them that you deserve to be paid for it, because they know. They’re your fans now, and they’d love to throw money at you.
So, I’m sorry to break it to you, impoverished indie musician, but if you’re not making money from your music, then you’re either not good enough or you haven’t put a god damn PayPal button on your website.
Slash rant.