Open Band

Description

"Severed Fifth is a band that I formed in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, it's a different kind of band. Outside of creating music for folks to enjoy, Severed Fifth has two goals:

1. The first is to put open distribution and community at the heart of the band, and to use these elements as catalysts to build growth, awareness and expose the benefits of what I am referring to as the Open Band approach.

2. The second goal is to use these elements to build success around Severed Fifth, so it becomes a great example of how an Open Band approach can work. I want other bands and musicians to be able to point to Severed Fifth and say, "If those guys can do it, so can we!" (http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/01/open-source-music-business.html)

Characteristics

The Open Band Three Tier system

"Severed Fifth is a music project with three core principles, which I have labeled as the Open Band Three Tier system:

1. We give the music away freely: Like open source, this encourages redistribution and awareness, and empowers fans to harness the content, share it with friends, and ultimately bring more listeners to the band (in the same way open source has exploded in popularity due to the free availability of content for users to test and assess if it works for them).

2. We build community: I have taken my experience in community management to build a community around Severed Fifth. This helps fans feel part of a project they can contribute to. We have done this in the form of the Severed Fifth Street Team.

3. We socialize Severed Fifth Fair Pay: We encourage people to pay what is fair and reasonable to them to help support the band. This is powered by PayPal and anyone with a piece of plastic in their wallet can contribute. Thanks to the free availability of content and the community feel, people gain a closer connection to the band. In turn, they are more likely to contribute. We have already seen many financial contributions from fans.

This idea is simple. In a recording industry environment that is widely regarded as ineffective, if we provide a solid example of a band that provides free access to content (which significantly lowers the barrier to attract fans) and empowers those fans with a community, this results in a wider fanbase that feels a closer sense of commitment to supporting their favorite bands. Of course, the same approach could be applied to other creative endeavors: publishing, art, video and more. My goal is to make Severed Fifth a successful and repeatable template." (http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/01/open-source-music-business.html)

Status

"We have made good progress thus far. In October, we put out our 11-track "Nightmares By Design" demo for free. The album is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, so you can share it with your friends, remix it, and otherwise enjoy it. Response has been very positive, with people not only enjoying the music, but also taking advantage of the rights. They've been spreading it around, putting it on YouTube videos, and making ringtones out of it.

We have also invested a lot of energy in building our community. As noted above, we created the Severed Fifth Street Team. These passionate fans have been putting Severed Fifth posters up in local areas, getting the music played on local radio and in clubs, and spreading awareness online. We have seen tremendous examples of people feeling inspired to contribute: Rob Kielty produced a Severed Fifth Android app, Virgil Brummond is working on a Severed Fifth fanzine, torontomario has created many Severed Fifth wallpapers, and Bungee Brent contributes photography.

In addition to this work, the community has come together to build awareness across many online resources such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Reverbnation and more. Throughout these resources, the community has contributed videos, graphics and advocacy — each person is harnessing their own skills to grow awareness of the band.

To get a good feel for the progress so far, we have released two short videos summarizing 2010 and the recording campaign. See 2010 Recapped and Severed Fifth Recording Campaign - Jan 2011 Update." (http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/01/open-source-music-business.html)