What value does something that is “free” have? Does it devalue the actual content if it is given away?

Does something that is free have “less quality” or could it even be “less good” than something that costs money?

This is a very interesting topic when it comes to music, and it begs the question: If an artist gives their music away for “free”, is it worth listening to?

Strange question, or is it? If something is free do you want it more or less than something that is *supposed* to cost money but that you don’t pay for, like a Promo Copy of a record, or a CD given to you by an artist? Those items have value, don’t they?

Legally free or illegally free, free is free. Zero is zero, it costs you nada, zip, zilch. But, for some reason, it appears that for a large majority of people the music that is stolen is perceived to have more value than the music that is simply given away. Does that make any sense? There is a perception here that needs to be broken that “free = bad”. It is almost like the implied value in the music is in the fact that *someone* actually payed for it, even if you didn’t. It’s like ’stealing’ is being in on a secret. There is psychologically implied value in the music when you pirate it.

Well, it is time to break that thought process for a few reasons. Independent labels are going away and more and more artists are turning to the internet to distribute their work, for free.

So, how does one create value with free and why? Just because the medium is digital doesn’t mean it didn’t take time and energy and money to create it. If you like what the artist is doing, support them! There are a number of ways to help generate income from free, and I’ll go over a few of them here.

#1 - Limited free availability. Make something free for a limited amount of time, then, assign price to it. If you can’t get it for free you may want it more, and when you can’t get it for free if you want it you’ll have to buy it.

#2 - Low Resolution for free, High Rez for a price. If you download something, and you like it you can then purchase the high quality version that has all of the detail in it.

#3 - Free/Paid Content Groupings. Give away a limited amount of songs for free, but if the entire package is wanted then a certain respectable price needs to be paid.

#4 - Honor System. Let the unit/item be downloaded for free and let the listener decide after they download it what they want to pay for it.

#5 - Forced Value Acknowledgment System. Let the user download the item for free, but make them enter the actual number $0 in for the price they are willing to pay. This way they understand that they are getting it for free.

#6 - Digital / Limited Physical Bundle. Couple digital media with physical media, be it a poster or exclusive content on a collectible medium that is limited in quantity.

#7 - Just give the damn things away. If the person likes what they hear, they will value it and come back for more and possibly purchase other items.

Think of free music like this - it is the great cutout bin in the sky. How many times did you go into Tower Records (the late) hoping to find that great find in that red tag bin?

And, ultimately, why should we care about any of this? If we don’t support and encourage the artists to continue to make new music, we will be limited to experiencing music from people that just started to make it and are comfortable giving it away, and, we will loose out on all of the wonderful artists that have been making music for decades but they have stopped because they could no longer afford to create the worlds that they inhabit for us to enjoy.

And ultimately, by supporting the artists with downloads and even a little compensation we are showing them that there is value in their work and they should continue.

Just something to think about.

Tags: Free, free models, mp3

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Bytes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.