Independent Music Producers Thriving in File Sharing Environment
The New York Times reports that small music labels are finding that they can gain marketing leverage over major producers via file sharing. The medium is not used for content sales, but simply to build up market interest in their products through the informal distribution of their wares, which generates enough new excitement that listeners then go out and make purchases. With such minimal marketing overhead, it takes only tens of thousands of sales for many of these companies' recordings to make a profit. In the world of online text content this is not a terribly revolutionary concept, but with very few media outlets providing access to new and interesting sources of independently produced audio content, it's kind of a big deal that people may actually want to surf more than one or two sources for something worth purchasing, or that referrals are a great source of business. Just imagine if record producers had an "email to a friend" link to songs posted on their sites! As much as we may kick an howl sometimes about text-based publishers, many have already spent years learning hard lessons about online content distribution that media producers are only beginning to grasp.