For some reason I found it absolutely necessary
for me to express my most sincere thoughts here about what it feels and takes
to be an Indie.
Right, I am an indie, it's true, trying all
kinds of genres. Before I was in electronica, now it's country-jazz-latin-acoustic.
I produce all my stuff myself, video, audio, no
one else is involved.
It's simply
easier that way. Saves you a lot of nerves for trying to gather a bunch of
undisciplined artists with killer talent, but tons of Egoship. So it saves you
not only nerves, but also time and efforts and makes you more focused on what
you have to come up with.
I decided to promote my latest video and for
the first time in my life I made an experiment and purchased some view traffic
off some (as later on it turned out) some blackhat bot using Internet entity.
Oh yeah, no adsense was involved. Oh
here it is BTW - Smiling Angel, Thundy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD4K8aHok1k
Views soared, but strangely I didn't get anywhere
on the most watched daily or something like that. After the promotion was over,
the views stopped, I was very sad about the fact of this kind of fake status
and actually felt in some way relieved when youtube deleted the video, however
this post is not about the fake views. This is what I gained out of this
experiment. I realized, that I'd never be able to get paid for the efforts, that
I spent on producing and doing all the hard work. Why?
As soon as the views on my video soared, I've
seen some side electronic stores popping out there with my name and album
selling options, and these stores are NOT licensed to sell my stuff. I contacted
my Tunecore management to ask, if these stores were legit to sell my stuff and
they turned out to be NOT amongst the licensed sellers. What do these “sellers”
do? Oh, they buy your album for 10 bucks (if not hack) and they upload it on their
websites ready for selling and watch
for the benefits in case the artist makes his/her way through. Isn't that
"wonderful"? They just
sit there and wait when the Big wave is going to crash at their e-shores to
make money and to rip off an Indie! There are already there with all their nets
set up. Aren't they ever smart?
Dear
Internet money makers! You have to have... SOME...at least SOME amount of
...shame... You have pushed individual music makers to the limits with your
smart strategies.(I won't
use any names here, I decided not to).
Here, let me tell you a thing or two about ...unsigned Indies.
A typical
Indie, that I know and probably am myself is in most cases:
1) An
artist, who produces his/her own music with his/her own blood and sweat. The
time, that he/she takes off to produce music can be outrageously different from
all big and even small music labels with budgets and stuff. In my case, the way
I produced my album was bloody difficult and time consuming - about 8 months of
work of one person... Non stop hard work… to the bones of your fingers... Pure
Prison Camp Work as I always put it.
Mind you,
there were no techniques with me like Melodyne to get the perfect pitch which prolongs
the production period by triple times time wise.
2) An
artist, who produces his/her own video content too, very possibly. It might
take up to months of everyday hard work to produce ONLY a 3 and a half minute
long video with a half decent quality.
3) An
artist, who has almost nothing in his or her budget to promote his/her content.
In most cases it's friends or relatives, who are helping out.
4) I know
many Indies, who are on a brink of life and
death from hunger. And still they find strength to somehow get up and actually
produce something.
5) I know
many Indies, who didn't make it in life and
died very young at the age of 27-28, and NO, not from drugs or alcohol but from
poor living conditions.
So BEFORE you actually decide to make money off
someone, who spilled their own blood and sweat over the art work - Think about
it! By literally making a living off something, that takes AGES to grow through
the pebbles and debris of social jungles, you are giving these people no chance
to go on with producing art, that doesn't come out of sugar pop candy stores
and that preserves their natural taste and color. Something, that is born in
hard conditions, though in the realm of freedom and free will. Have some decency, will you? To me it's like
robbing and depriving someone, who barely makes it enough to make ends meet and
all for the sake of art?
Remember, an Indie made all his/her choices and
sacrifices to the benefit of art and these sacrifices include personal time,
strength, health, energy, heart and soul if you wish. This is something totally
different from big fish music label with enormous strength, funds and power.
STOP MUSIC PIRACY!
