Just For the Fun of it? Contemporary Strategies for Making, Distributing and Gifting Music

Technological developments in home recording and internet distribution mean
that it is now easier than ever before for musicians both to create music and to
distribute it directly to consumers. The traditional economic relations and structures
of the recording and copyright industries may largely be bypassed through
processes of disintermediation, and musicians have much greater control over
their own recorded works than is typically afforded by the commercial recording
companies. Many musicians have adopted alternative strategies for making their
music available to the public, and it is on one broad subset of these musicians
that this paper will focus. These musicians make their music available for free
download/streaming through sites such as Bandcamp, Free Music Archive and
the Internet Archive, or directly through their own websites. In some cases the
music is released through collective netlabels and Creative Commons licenses,
while in others copyright is retained and the music is made available on a “name
your price” basis with no minimum amount specified. This article will examine
such practices in terms of theories of gifting, and in relation to Jacques Attali’s
notion of the age or mode of composition.