Download Free Beats - Is This Option Good for Business
"Hip Hop Beats Rap Intrumental Music for Sale" presents: "Download Free Beats - Is This Option Good for Business"
If you are a producer self promoting yourself on the internet then you have probably let others download your beats for free. This article talks about this very issue.
author: The Quarter Pounder with Cheese
Nowadays, artists and producers have the choice of putting up beats for either streaming only or for both streaming and downloading. Both of these options are typically offered by online independent music websites such as Soundclick and Music.Download.com. It is usually a large debate on whether beats should be free or not free for public downloading, due to the large problem of plagiarism and copyright infringement. In this article, we will analyze both the advantages and disadvantages of allowing free downloads.
The Advantages
1. Gain more traffic. You must recognize that most users of the internet are freeloaders and lurkers, always looking for something that doesn’t require them to bust out their wallet. Therefore, anything that is free will automatically attract more visitors to your webpage, especially if you clearly label or advertise your products as free.
2. Establish audience loyalty. By audience loyalty, it means that there will be a high return rate of visitors to your webpage. Because you label your beats as free, they will always return to your page on a regular basis to see if you have any new instrumentals at no charge to them.
3. Get more exposure. This works two ways. The first way to gain more exposure automatically through free beats is simply by word of mouth. For example, an amateur rapper will find your free beats for his or her freestyle or demo projects, and then most likely let his or her friends and associates know about yoru webpage to get more free beats. The second way to gain more exposure is through the music files themselves. If you properly label your beat filenames (XYZ Beats - Name of Beat) with all the valid ID info attached to the file, people will quickly share these files through Peer-to-Peer sharing programs such as Limewire or Bittorrent. Also, people will burn your files to CDs, label them, and then play them in their car or at locations where their friends will hear them whom will most likely ask the question, ‘Wow, who made that beat?’
The Disadvantages
1. Risk of copyright infringement. This is often one of the largest problems with giving away free downloads. I personally know how upsetting it is when another person uses your beat without giving proper credit where due, but worse, sells a song using the beat for a quick buck without your permission or without buying a license from you.
2. Reselling plagiarized work for profit. Sometimes a beat thief will go as far as jacking your hard work and reselling the very beat itself for his or her personal profit, taking full credit for him or herself. This is often the most infuriating and disrespectful thing to do towards the producer.
Alternate Methods of Prevention
In actuality, if someone really wanted to steal your beat, they can do so regardless of allowing free downloads or not. They can simply stream the song, and then use certain software programs that can directly rip the sounds coming out of their system (i.e. the beat) and turn it into a digital file.
One alternate method of preventing theft of your intellectual property is by chopping the length of your track so that the listener can only hear a short piece of the track (typically a verse and a hook). However, anyone with a bit of skill can just chop and reloop the track so it sounds seamless. More importantly, a genuine enthusiast of your music who wants to just freestyle or do some non-profit work on your track will now be highly discouraged and disappointed by the shortened length. This method is highly not recommended at all.
Another alternate method instead of not allowing free downloads is to have paid downloads (i.e. 99 cents per download). People who are willing to pay for downloads are usually legitimate and do not have intentions of stealing your beats (beat thiefs are usually freeloaders). This is very tricky because if you used to give away free downloads and suddenly begin to charge for them, you will most likely annoy much of your audience. I do not recommend charging for your downloads until you are reasonably popular — which means that even if your audience is annoyed by the sudden fees, they can’t help but admit that you have hot popular stuff!
The third alternate method — probably the safest method — is by using the soundtag technique (read more about soundtags in this article). Soundtags, however, are not fully recommended as they have many disadvantages that discourage people from listening to your beats wholeheartedly.
Finding the Right Balance
So we must weigh all of our advantages and disadvantages and then apply a compromising and balanced method to achieve the best deal. Remember, if you allow free downloads, make sure you place a clear note for your audience that beats are free to use for non-profit use only as long as proper credit is given (unless you want to give royalty free beats away for profitable use at no charge). In conclusion, what I suggest is that you first estimate how popular you are by comparing yourself to your community peers or direct competition – and then use the following recommended approaches, depending on your level of recognition (of course, you can just make all your beats always free to download if you don’t really care about beat thiefs or petty plagiarism).
1. If You’re a Brand New, Completely Unknown Producer. No one will jack your beats just yet. Allow completely free downloads of full length, high-quality tracks, free of soundtags. Your number one priority is to get your beats heard, and preventing free downloads will just be an obstacle in your journey.
2. If You Have Some Visitors to Your Webpage. You’ve yet to have any fanatics or diehard loyal fans to you and your work. Therefore, you still need to get your name out. Continue to allow completely free downloads of full length beats, free of soundtags. If you really feel insecure, then pick an extremely small portion of your hottest tracks and remove free downloads. At this stage, the chances of someone stealing your beats are slim to none and getting your beats heard is infinitely more important.
3. If You are a Somewhat Recognized Producer. This is the stage where you begin to have loyal fans and followers of your beats, albeit not too many. If artists and fans start hearing about you, then so will the beat thiefs. This is when you can begin to use soundtags. I do not recommend you to use soundtags all throughout the beat, but rather, just a “signature mark” in the beginning and/or end of the beat (read more about soundtags in this article). You may also want to charge for downloads for a limited selection of your hottest beats, although this is not recommended until you are widely known. Image factor is important — if you are not a popular producer, others will think you are trying to be a cheapskate by nickel-and-diming them.
4. If You are a Known Producer in Your Community. If you find yourself constantly in the top ranks or the most downloaded in your community or immediate competitive market, then you should feel confident enough to charge for downloads. Continue to maintain your “signature mark” if you wish, but keep your beats in high quality in full length.
5. If You are a Widely Known Popular Mainstream Producer. Then why are you reading this article?
If you are a producer self promoting yourself on the internet then you have probably let others download your beats for free. This article talks about this very issue.
author: The Quarter Pounder with Cheese
Nowadays, artists and producers have the choice of putting up beats for either streaming only or for both streaming and downloading. Both of these options are typically offered by online independent music websites such as Soundclick and Music.Download.com. It is usually a large debate on whether beats should be free or not free for public downloading, due to the large problem of plagiarism and copyright infringement. In this article, we will analyze both the advantages and disadvantages of allowing free downloads.
The Advantages
1. Gain more traffic. You must recognize that most users of the internet are freeloaders and lurkers, always looking for something that doesn’t require them to bust out their wallet. Therefore, anything that is free will automatically attract more visitors to your webpage, especially if you clearly label or advertise your products as free.
2. Establish audience loyalty. By audience loyalty, it means that there will be a high return rate of visitors to your webpage. Because you label your beats as free, they will always return to your page on a regular basis to see if you have any new instrumentals at no charge to them.
3. Get more exposure. This works two ways. The first way to gain more exposure automatically through free beats is simply by word of mouth. For example, an amateur rapper will find your free beats for his or her freestyle or demo projects, and then most likely let his or her friends and associates know about yoru webpage to get more free beats. The second way to gain more exposure is through the music files themselves. If you properly label your beat filenames (XYZ Beats - Name of Beat) with all the valid ID info attached to the file, people will quickly share these files through Peer-to-Peer sharing programs such as Limewire or Bittorrent. Also, people will burn your files to CDs, label them, and then play them in their car or at locations where their friends will hear them whom will most likely ask the question, ‘Wow, who made that beat?’
The Disadvantages
1. Risk of copyright infringement. This is often one of the largest problems with giving away free downloads. I personally know how upsetting it is when another person uses your beat without giving proper credit where due, but worse, sells a song using the beat for a quick buck without your permission or without buying a license from you.
2. Reselling plagiarized work for profit. Sometimes a beat thief will go as far as jacking your hard work and reselling the very beat itself for his or her personal profit, taking full credit for him or herself. This is often the most infuriating and disrespectful thing to do towards the producer.
Alternate Methods of Prevention
In actuality, if someone really wanted to steal your beat, they can do so regardless of allowing free downloads or not. They can simply stream the song, and then use certain software programs that can directly rip the sounds coming out of their system (i.e. the beat) and turn it into a digital file.
One alternate method of preventing theft of your intellectual property is by chopping the length of your track so that the listener can only hear a short piece of the track (typically a verse and a hook). However, anyone with a bit of skill can just chop and reloop the track so it sounds seamless. More importantly, a genuine enthusiast of your music who wants to just freestyle or do some non-profit work on your track will now be highly discouraged and disappointed by the shortened length. This method is highly not recommended at all.
Another alternate method instead of not allowing free downloads is to have paid downloads (i.e. 99 cents per download). People who are willing to pay for downloads are usually legitimate and do not have intentions of stealing your beats (beat thiefs are usually freeloaders). This is very tricky because if you used to give away free downloads and suddenly begin to charge for them, you will most likely annoy much of your audience. I do not recommend charging for your downloads until you are reasonably popular — which means that even if your audience is annoyed by the sudden fees, they can’t help but admit that you have hot popular stuff!
The third alternate method — probably the safest method — is by using the soundtag technique (read more about soundtags in this article). Soundtags, however, are not fully recommended as they have many disadvantages that discourage people from listening to your beats wholeheartedly.
Finding the Right Balance
So we must weigh all of our advantages and disadvantages and then apply a compromising and balanced method to achieve the best deal. Remember, if you allow free downloads, make sure you place a clear note for your audience that beats are free to use for non-profit use only as long as proper credit is given (unless you want to give royalty free beats away for profitable use at no charge). In conclusion, what I suggest is that you first estimate how popular you are by comparing yourself to your community peers or direct competition – and then use the following recommended approaches, depending on your level of recognition (of course, you can just make all your beats always free to download if you don’t really care about beat thiefs or petty plagiarism).
1. If You’re a Brand New, Completely Unknown Producer. No one will jack your beats just yet. Allow completely free downloads of full length, high-quality tracks, free of soundtags. Your number one priority is to get your beats heard, and preventing free downloads will just be an obstacle in your journey.
2. If You Have Some Visitors to Your Webpage. You’ve yet to have any fanatics or diehard loyal fans to you and your work. Therefore, you still need to get your name out. Continue to allow completely free downloads of full length beats, free of soundtags. If you really feel insecure, then pick an extremely small portion of your hottest tracks and remove free downloads. At this stage, the chances of someone stealing your beats are slim to none and getting your beats heard is infinitely more important.
3. If You are a Somewhat Recognized Producer. This is the stage where you begin to have loyal fans and followers of your beats, albeit not too many. If artists and fans start hearing about you, then so will the beat thiefs. This is when you can begin to use soundtags. I do not recommend you to use soundtags all throughout the beat, but rather, just a “signature mark” in the beginning and/or end of the beat (read more about soundtags in this article). You may also want to charge for downloads for a limited selection of your hottest beats, although this is not recommended until you are widely known. Image factor is important — if you are not a popular producer, others will think you are trying to be a cheapskate by nickel-and-diming them.
4. If You are a Known Producer in Your Community. If you find yourself constantly in the top ranks or the most downloaded in your community or immediate competitive market, then you should feel confident enough to charge for downloads. Continue to maintain your “signature mark” if you wish, but keep your beats in high quality in full length.
5. If You are a Widely Known Popular Mainstream Producer. Then why are you reading this article?
posted by Yuwie Cash Money | 2:38 AM
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