Unsigned Not Wasted - Connecting Indie Musicians with Fans

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Ranked #1,203 in Music, #32,112 overall

Social Music & DIY Music Marketing Tools

A social music hub connecting independent musicians and music fans with tools to help foster successful artist-2-fan relationships. Focusing on new market opportunities created by developments in social media and the emergent Web 2.0 platform.

If you're looking for ways to connect, develop and market your music projects this lens provides much of the research you're likely to need.

  • Artists can explore specialized tools and services designed to promote, spread and sell their music products.
  • Fans can find new ways to discover artists, recommend great music, and benefit from Artist partnerships.

Why Squidoo?
Well, it's a fast and fluid way to build an interactive clearinghouse on a single page. It also has the benefit of cutting-edge community tools and support. You can search the entire Squidoo network for interesting lenses with Squidoogle.

To participate simply log on or grab a free Squidoo membership to get started.

This is a living lens where the ink never dries and The Great Unsigned are free to roam. Decide for Yourself and start the adventure!

Unsigned Not Wasted concept and curation by David Holmes. Collective intelligence by The Tribe.

twitter / DavidHolmes

Dave's Imaginary Sound Store - Amazon store for related books and music products.

Lens image created with Wordle.net

This lens is twinned with... 

featured lens The Music Matrix - Your Daily Music Discovery Mashboard

A music discovery mashboard you can use to explore social music sites, news, photos, videos, widgets and conversations. Some of the things you can do here: Start your adventures in the digital music landscape using the latest Music 2.0 apps. Surf...

Dashboards

media aggregators, news, bookmarks

Techmeme Music Headlines 

Online music business developments.

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Blogs Buzz 

Fresh blog posts talking about unsigned bands.
BandCentral Launches Online Band Manager to Help Unsigned Bands ...
BandCentral Launches Online Band Manager to Help Unsigned Bands Compete in Today's Music Industry BandCentral's Online Band Manager is set to Revloutionise.
BandCentral Launches Online Band Manager to Help Unsigned Bands ...
BandCentral's Online Band Manager is set to Revloutionise the way that Unsigned Bands Communicate, get Organised and Promote Themselves Online. (PRWeb Jul 6, 2009) Read the full story at ...
Colorama's Dave Fletcher has died - Band Weblogs - The Music Blog ...
Band Weblogs features a healthy mix of band blogs, music blogs, new releases, music news, band reviews, interviews, band press releases, videos, MP3s, guest music bloggers, indie, signed bands, unsigned bands, musicians and more. ...
Unsigned bands to play at town festival (From The Northern Echo)
A LINE-UP of young unsigned bands has been announced for a North-East festival next weekend.
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Mission Criteria

learn more about the UNW project

Unsigned Defined 

General definitions for unsigned, indie and DIY artists

Wikipedia - Unsigned artist
Encyclopedia references referring to "Unsigned"

"An unsigned artist is a musical artist or group not attached or signed to a record label. Similarly, the contractual condition of any creative person or group."

"The term unsigned artist is used in the music industry to refer to a singer, songwriter, musician or band that has no affiliation with a record label. Many unsigned artists sell their music and music-related merchandise without the financial support of a record label, while often seeking a recording contract through the recording of demos. The difference between an unsigned artist and aspiring artist is that aspiring artists in most cases do not sell their music commercially."

 

Independent music

In popular music, independent music, often generally abbreviated as "indie", is a term used to describe independence from major commercial record labels and an autonomous, Do-It-Yourself approach to recording and publishing.

Independent labels have been known to strive for minimal influence on the artist they represent, avoiding the artist-cultivating behavior of many major labels. Artists represented by Independent labels have been known to be focused more on producing music than becoming wealthy and/or well known.

read the rest of the Wikipedia article

Project Aims 

How this lens can help you

The project aims to:
  • Aid new music discovery, distribution and promotion.
  • Connect unsigned artists, managers and fans with the best Music 2.0 tools and resources.
  • Explore new opportunities for artist/fan interaction.
  • Help independent musicians prosper and profit from their creative work. 

Do-it-Yourself
Why waste your talent being a puppet for The Man when you can follow your own direction, build your own fan base and foster the respect you deserve from the people that count? The DIY ethic can be applied to finding self-reliant solutions for music production and commerce using the growing Web 2.0 infrastructure. Many artists have already achieved success using self-promotional business techniques to build a fanbase.

Web 2.0
Successive waves of disruptive technologies continue to change the way we find, share and pay for music. The Social Web offers a multitude of ways to build brands, collaborate and spread ideas. New Open Business models are emerging built around openness, free services and free access. For musicians this represents an unparalleled opportunity to explore creativity, retain artistic control and exploit Long Tail economics.


Music Marketing Solutions
Unsigned Not Wasted helps independent artists find free to low-cost music marketing solutions. People can locate, track and share information about a range of DIY music tools including sites for collaboration, flexible music licensing, media distribution and artist promotion. Targetted web feeds deliver the unsigned buzz from blogs and social networks.

To learn more about this DIY medium of communication, and the shift in economic value of the web, see the videos below for a short introduction.

Contributions 

Sharing information

Anyone can participate by adding artist and music resources to the interactive lists (plexos). These lists can be shared on webpages by grabbing the RSS feeds or widget codes.

Vote for what you Value
Individual list items can be voted on to rank them up, as can the overall lens at the top of the page. If you want to help unsigned bands and promote music difficult to find using corporate media outlets, vote for what you believe in. Every vote counts!

This way we all get a say in developing the project and sharing cool stuff. Feel free to spread the Unsigned Not Wasted meme however you wish. Use the 'Contact Me' link on the left sidebar if you want to share media such as graphics, info etc. You can share messages with the wider web community in the comments area at the bottom of the lens.

Music 2.0

using the machine

About Web 2.0 

By alluding to the version-numbers that commonly designate software upgrades, the phrase "Web 2.0" hints at an improved form of the World Wide Web; advocates suggest that technologies such as weblogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social software, Web APIs, Web standards and online Web services imply a significant change in web usage. From Wikipedia - Web 2.0

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The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version) 0 points

The Small Print

hosts, terms, conditions

Music Media Hosts 

Reading the Small Print
The creation and distribution of music has become widespread due to the abundance of Internet technologies and new online media services (Social Media/Web 2.0).

The sites used to host and distribute music online differ widely in their end user agreements and Terms of Service. Some sites are 'friendlier' than others for content creators, depending on how the creator/copyright holder permits the work to be used and whether or not they get paid.

It's important to recognize that many music sharing sites can sell or license uploaded works to third parties without financial compensation to the creator.

For people sharing free music under flexible licenses like Creative Commons this is extremely important because their choice of license is often determined by requirements involving pre-cleared authorization, user flexibility, and various copyright protections, including non-commercial use. These copyrights can be superceded or nullified by agreeing to the TOS of the music hosting service. Superceded terms may be perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable and transferable so it's helpful to know what the user may be giving up before accepting the terms.

Most music sharing sites have some kind of involvement with commercial partners such as advertisers, licensees, sponsors, affiliates and the like. This includes aggregators and search engines that spider, index and offer music elsewhere.

When choosing a host it's often a case of finding a balance between the features on offer and the Terms of Service, especially in the grey area of non-commercial use licenses. When using a third-party hosting service it's worth remembering the role partnership deals play in the financing of their operations. It's wise to read the TOS, privacy policy and copyright policy first to determine the reputation and suitability of the service. An alternative is to host the files on your own server or use a suitable paid web hosting provider.

Opinion
The Royalty Scam
New York Times article by Billy Brag.

These crazy musicians still think they should get paid for recorded music Techcrunch's Michael Arrington riffs on the Billy Bragg article with interesting reader comments.

Record Label 'Infinges' Own Copyright, Site Pulled

Open Music

copyleft, creative commons, free culture

Open Music Tools 

The shift to copyleft, creative networks

Thousands of artists, musicians, writers, and software developers are making their creative works available online for others to share openly and freely. Organizations like Creative Commons provide the legal framework for creators to mark their work with the kind of flexible freedoms they want it to carry: "Some Rights Reserved" as opposed to "All Rights Reserved".

In music circles this type of Free Culture movement is known as Open Music because it applies the concept of Open Source computer software to music. The social web makes it possible for everyone to participate in the creation, distribution and promotion of Open Music.

Copyleft licensing enables the free circulation of pre-cleared media and derivative works on the Internet. A healthy Remix Culture is important for creative work that involves sampling, remixing, podcasting, and web-mashups.

The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen a steady growth in the use of CC licenses. New creative networks have emerged, circumventing the limitations "conventional" copyrights impose on digital information. Most notably the collaborative music community, ccMixter, the first free remix site designed for independent musicians using CC licenses. Magnatune was one of the first digital music labels to develop the Open Music approach and both services continue to innovate in this space today.

Below are some tools that make it easy to find similar free and legal media resources for your own projects.
Open Music Search
A Google custom search engine indexing dozens of key Open Music Resources. Use it to find Copyleft, Creative Commons, Open Source, and Public Domain works. Including media files, software, blogs, and creative networks. You can also grab the widget for your own web projects and Google startpages.
Creative Commons Search
Provides multiple engines for searching main Open Media hubs with the option to filter searches by desired source, media type, and Creative Commons license. Use it to find free music, videos, images, and other media.
Open Media Directory | Ourmedia
A free resource for finding legal, podsafe music and video. The hand picked resources are designed to help artists, podcasters, bands, DJs, remixers, music bloggers and creators of video content working with Copyleft, Creative Commons, and royalty-free licenses.

Opensonics Lens 

featured lens Opensonics : Open Music Community News & Copyleft Media Resources

Focusing on news and developments within the Open Music community. Promoting awareness of copyleft music, open media services, and free software. Community buzz is delivered via a mashup of feeds from leading copyleft media networks including blogs,...

Knowledge

guides & gurus

Video: Music Business Models 

This is a feature video spot for indie music career tips and info. You can leave your own tips, and links to similar videos in the comments area at the bottom of the lens. Videos are shared via YouTube.com/DISSmedia

Michael Masnick The Trent Reznor case study

Since completing his earlier major record label contract, musician Trent Reznor has been experimenting with a variety of new and unique business models for his band, Nine Inch Nails, to reach and connect with fans. This case study explores Reznor's experiments, examining what has worked and what has not - and why. Speaker: Michael Masnick (Editor/President & CEO, Techdirt Blog/Floor64)

Runtime: 15:46
41164 views
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Find Your Voice 

By Seth Godin

"Marketing (in all its forms) is unlike everything else an organization does, because it's always different. There's no manual because everyone does it differently, and what successful marketers have in common is that they are successful.

The only way your organization is going to make an impact is to market in the way only you can. Not by following some expert's rules or following the herd, but by doing it in the way that works. For you. Don't worry about someone else's invented standards for new media, invent your own. Avoid obvious mistakes, don't follow obvious successes.

Find your voice, don't copy someone else's." From Seth's Blog

DIY Music Survival Guides 

Insight and ideas on how to survive in the changing music media revolution.

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Image Discovery and Graphic Design Resources 

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Find, explore and share useful graphic design resources for building better blogs, social profiles and professional websites. Discover free online image applications and inspirational visual media you can use in your creative projects. The lens focu...

Music Books 

Useful tips and professional knowledge

Recommended books on the art of sound and music creation including Music Technology, Philosophy and Aesthetics.

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Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age by Steve Knopper

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created by DavidHolmes

Digital Marketplaces

business, commerce, income