1. A chance to win a pair of tickets to an intimate show tomorrow night
2. 2 free unreleased MP3 tracks ripped @ 192kbps
3. Access to The Hip Club
4. Oh yeah, the music.

Why didn't I buy their last album?

1. It was available online months before the official release
2. No need to compensate them because of Fairtunes.
   That's right, it was when the Hip were releasing their last album that John and I dreamed up Fairtunes.
3. There was no incentive other than the music to buy it

So 2 years ago let's say the Hip essentially got $0 out of me. 2 years later they got $60. What's the secret to their success?

1. The album did not leak.
   The fact that the album did not leak at all is huge. How did they ensure the album didn't leak? Quite simply they didn't release the songs to *anyone* (that includes reporters) till a week before the launch. Even then they only released a low quality version of the song which could be heard through the flash preview on their site.
2. Lots of incentive to buy
   
   • Timeliness: Since the album didn't leak it means that once it releases it will take some time before it propogates out through the 'pirate' p2p networks. So if you want to be the first to listen to it, then you gotta buy it.
   • The Hip Club: Buying the CD gets you into the club which means exclusive content in *MP3* format and exclusive merchandise. So that translates into being able to download 2 extra songs the day you buy the CD.
   • Intimate Concert. Buying the CD gives you the chance to enter to see the Hip with a 100 other people at a small venue in either Toronto, Buffalo, Detroit, or Vermount.

Is paying for music a thing of the past? No, if bands (well really their management) play their card rights they can get dedicated fans to buy, instead of pirate, their material. The secret as we see with The Hip is to offer tangible benefits since music is now becoming an almost intangible commodity. Those benefits can include exclusive access to small, intimate concerts, exclusive access to merchandise, discounts on their back library, exclusive tracks available via a central, reliable server, exclusive access to discounted tickets,...

The Hip coupled those tangible benefits with a CD which will work for them, but I challenge them on their next release to offer separately the tangible benefits because by buying their CD today I paid for an outdated distribution mechanism for an outdated medium.

The next step for The Hip to extract even more money out of me (keep in mind I have $750 for of Hip tickets sitting on my desk) is to sell copies of their live shows via the net. Currently I pay $3.50 to receive a bootleg Hip show from my taper friends (all money minus costs goes to charity). Now the quality is sometimes good, mostly decent, and sometimes really bad. The Hip now have the opportunity to make excellent bootlegs on their upcoming tour and use The Hip Club to distribute these shows for say $3.50 a download. It's a no brainer.

Side note: I once spoke to Aimee Mann's manager and inquired about their thoughts on the whole bootleg scene and he said that they didn't encourage bootlegs because there is no quality control in place and Aimee Mann would rather have no bootlegs in circulation than bad ones. Which begs the question, why don't they seize control of production which would then guarantee quality and then distribute it themselves).

And there you have the secret to getting me, Mr.I think the CD is dead, to buy CDs.

In response:

• Gary concedes that DRM might not be the answer
• Feedback from you

2:39:52 PM   []