How much do you think local musicians earn from their music? I bet it is pretty low. Perhaps that is why musicians in our part of the world have full time jobs. As a musician, when you give your song or album to a local record label such as Ogopa Deejays, or Calif Records…how much do you earn? How much do they earn?

I believe that all artists should have affordable access to all channels of music distribution, get all of the money generated from the sale of their music, and all without giving up any of their master recording ownership, copyrights, merchandise rights, live performance income, public performance royalties or any other rights or money. Do you share my beliefs?

So recently I helped a friend (a musician) set up online. He made a sale yesterday. A Swedish couple, in Sweden, liked his album, and bought it. My friend emailed me saying, “you should start an online record company.” I actually have thought about that for quite a while. I know for sure that our local artistes have a far better chance of earning from their music online than through the local market. Blame piracy.

Is there need for an online record company? Well, look at it this way…if I was a musician and I found out that I can quit my day job and focus on my music, I would jump at the opportunity! Would you? The bigger issue is whether there is a market for Kenyan music online. More research needs to be done on this but I do feel there is a large and untapped market for anyone’s (not just Kenyan) music online.

What would it take to start an online record company? I do not know. But as with all good ideas that I have, I shall share my thoughts with you, dear readers.

First and foremost, one needs to know how to market online. You shall be taking the hopes and dreams of people and you shall be responsible for their success or failure. You need to know how to build an online presence, nurture it and grow it. This requirement means that, currently, not many Kenyan are qualified to start an online record label.

Secondly, one needs to understand how to market music online. Apart from setting up the artist’s website, blog, etc etc one must be able to actually find a market for the music, and then sell it. The most obvious places to sell seem to be places like: iTunes, Amazon MP3, Zune Marketplace, Rhapsody, eMusic, etc. One should also understand the more indirect methods of selling – for example, one American band famously gave away all their songs free on MySpace. They then went on a tour of the USA, and had live – well paying – shows in almost every town, big or small. Despite being a small unknown band, almost all their shows were well attended. It turns out almost everyone knew of them and liked their music (they got it free).

Looking at the two requirements above, I would say that, really, all a prospective online music label needs to have people who know the Internet; people how know marketing and, above all else, people who are creative and are not afraid to to do new and different things. Could this be you?

Let’s be honest, some music is harder to sell than others. If I had an online record label, I would find ways to work with only those musicians whose music inspires or impresses me. One would think that the best way to run the business would be to accept all musicians. I be to differ. Perhaps you can offer certain limited services to every other musician but I believe real success can only be achieved if you work with musicians who you believe in. Marketing is challenging, online marketing even more so. if you do not believe in what you are trying to market, then you will not market it so well.

Finally, my type of online music record label would be creative in how it charges its musicians. I believe that musicians deserve 100% of all their royalties, copyrights, merchandise rights, and any other rights. Instead of charging a commission on the royalties, for example, I’d charge a small annual fee (depending on how much work I do for them).

Does this make sense to anyone? Discuss below, let’s start an online music record label, shall we?

Photo by Shankar, Shiv.