freeconomics

The question is than: if market value of music approaches zero, will the value of merchandising rise?
For instance: I’d prefer to spent 50 euro on a “special edition” album than pay 20 euro for a cd (or 9.99 for a mp3 album).

I find that mixing a salaried job with freebies allows me to deduct the work done from freebies against my salary at self-assessment time. So “free” becomes at HM Government’s expense. Which, I suppose, will lead to higher taxes ….which will drive higher salaries which will make it even easier to get on the self-assessment bandwagon.
With the case of Radiohead, if their A&R man at the record company hadn’t promoted the shit out of them how would they fare? I mean, if nobody had heard of Radiohead, why would anyone care about another bland band releasing their music on the internet?
Oh yeah, it’s all in the marketing baby!

Not intending to just troll this, but I would contend that the market value of recorded music is pretty close to zero anyway. The real value.

A guy from the music industry I met at the recent Power to the Pixel event said that all recorded music is now seen as an advert for gigs – live events that you can’t really duplicated or pirate.
Maybe all creative industries will go this way???

This all assumes that success is measured in terms of dollars – free means money does not change hands.
Our approach to interactions have changed to the that we now have the “what’s in it for me” attitude as opposed to “if I offer this service for free likely my personal free services bank account will grow”.
I believe that a combination of free and paid for services is sustainable and that I am building my “free service” bank account.
When I need to withdraw from my bank accout I expect that the funds will be available (and at a very low interest rate)
This account forms the most powerful relationship between the provider and the recipient of free services even if only on a subconcious level.

If I were to take a guess, I’d say there’s more respect when a work is free to start (and then rises in value) versus when someone asking X price for something suddenly slashes said prices.
As Scott Adams said, he put his book out because he didn’t think enough people were willing to pay, and thus discounted his work. He reduced the value of said item by himself, not because people reduced it for him.
RadioHead’s acts caused the general value of their work to raise not because they discounted their work, but because to anyone who actually cared, the work was effectively discounted through iTunes and piracy anyway; this way, at least Radiohead got their money.
It’s a big difference between slashing your prices (and admitting your business model failed) and doing something for free to begin with.

Wow! Eerie timing, considering I added your Widget to my blog last night. For free 🙂 Thanks!!
Ultimately I feel your expectations of the outcome drive your decision to give away things for free.
I would also take into account the end user and what they see as their perceived take-away.
For example, let’s say you…Hugh…are making an offer to give away all your cartoons for free in a download – or – to publish a book of all your cartoons done up all shiny and nice in a coffee-table type of book (with an autograph, even!) for a fee.
I’d pay to have the nice and shiny autographed version. Nicer presentation and more permanent to my way of thinking. My take-away thought is : content, presentation, end quality.
My 2 cents, for what it’s worth.

As an entertainer, I’ve been debating this issue with my fellow performers. We are “free” to most of our audiences, because they see us at events where they either paid to get in and we are part of the entertainment, or where the event itself is free, or where we pass the hat. In all cases, our services are paid for – either by the event organizers who need “free” things as part of their event to make money or generate goodwill in some sense, or by the audience themselves through their choice of an appropriate donation.
When we pass the hat at a no-admission-charge event, we make the most money. The key seems to be 1) a set-up of expectations, that the crowd arrives knowing they are expected to contribute and that we suggest $5-10 as a decent tip; and 2) critical mass, where the crowd is large enough that the people who can afford to give subsidize those who can’t. For us, this is the ideal content delivery system. We present the same show to everyone, and the fact that it is free to those who cannot pay encourages those who can to step up. Also, the quality of our content is high enough (intrinsically and compared to other content) that people often give more than they had planned or anticipated. In all cases where we pass the hat, it is relatively easy to walk away without giving, but they choose to anyway.
We also note that when delivering the “hat line” (the give us money speech before the finale), the more sincerely we express that we value their smiles and laughter as much as their money, the more money we actually get.
So we’ve actually been trying to figure out a way to give our content away free all the time! Sadly, US laws and custom do not make pure street performing (without a surrounding festival) profitable or pleasant. I wonder if there’s a larger idea here about the “surroundings” of a voluntary payment experience?

Free is indeed complicated. I think Adams is making a point about setting up expectations and boundaries. There’s a saying (I can only translate it from Spanish, but it’s probably universal): “give someone a hand, and they take the whole arm.”
Honestly, what you say in the last paragraph hits home. I’ve been looking at a lot of writing/blogging jobs on the net lately, and based on what some businesses are willing to pay, you might as well be working for free.