Free Distribute. Break-Even, Do-It-Yourself, Viral Distribution For Music.
Release without reserving reproduction rights.
Encourage your supporters to reproduce your work.
Case Study #1: Indie Nobody
Indie Nobody is a new act from anywhere doing any style of music. They've written songs and are looking for an audience. They've worked hard and recorded an album on the cheap with begged and borrowed studio equipment.
Indie Nobody wants to offer this album to the masses so they submit it to various small record labels with their fingers crossed. Sadly, the music business is in a funk and no record labels want to advance them the money to manufacture CDs, and even if they pay out of pocket to manufacture themselves, they'd still need a distribution deal to get it to retailers. If they manage to get that far, the record still stands a good chance to being lost behind major releases with major marketing campaigns.
Instead, Indie Nobody burns copies on CD-Rs, sticks a reasonable looking label on the discs and sells them for $5 each to friends and well wishers. With a little frugal shopping for blank CD-Rs labels and jewel cases, plus use of a supporters CD burner, these copies of the album cost about $3 each to make.
Rather than going into debt pressing more CDs then anybody is sure they can sell, Indie Nobody is making a dollar or two per copy right from the first unit.
To spread the word even further, Indie Nobody encourages others to reproduce their record and give it away, or better still, sell it for whatever they can get.
Luckily for Indie Nobody, their music is amazing. The CD spreads like wild, copied from fan to fan, selling from countless Internet sites and reproduced behind the counter at independent record stores.
On the downside, the members of Indie Nobody don't get reproduction royalties.
On the upside, they now have an international fan base and there are other ways to make a buck with that.
Case Study #2: The Collector
The Collector is a hard core music fan. They own thousands of albums and like nothing better then turning people onto new music. They are constantly frustrated because so much good music is pushed to the side by the mighty mainstream. Records from their favorite bands are impossible to find.
The Collector has a CD burner and can copy anything they own, but they know it's ripping off the artist. The band will never pay off their manufacturing expenses, out of pocket or to their label, if everyone copies the album from their friends.
Not so with a Free Distributed album. Then the band has no manufacturing expense and is encouraging The Collector to make that copy. Rather then ripping off an artist they support, The Collector is supporting the cause by copying the CD. Even better, if he's got a really good collection he can make a profit doing it.
The Collector starts a web site listing all of the Free Distributed albums their possession. It's an indie cornucopia full of obscure everything from the newest most underground sounds imaginable to bands long forgotten by even their own members.
When you order something, The Collector copies it and sends it off, making a few bucks in the process. New acts get exposure without going into debt and the forgotten demos are always there if somebody wants them.
Everything is very cheap and very service oriented because anybody else can start their own web site doing exactly the same thing. If The Collectors copying charge gets too high, there's nothing to stop someone else from copying the same CDs for a lower price.