We release just about everything we do as Pay What You Can. We make music, you pay us whatever you think it’s worth. The minimum price for downloads is a big fat zero. The minimum price for physical (CD’s etc) is cost of manufacture + post and packing. If you come to see us at a gig we’ll sell you a CD for whatever you want to pay.

Why do we do this?

We believe that the old fashioned record industry model is on it’s last legs. We believe that it’s better to sell direct to fans than via shops. We believe that we now exist in an environment where recorded music is essentially available for free and that environment is totally created by the laziness of the record industry and why fight that? If you want our music you are more than welcome to it. Please… take it, play it, give it to your friends. If you feel that the music we make has value to you then feel free to give us some money. If you do give us some money then you can do so safe in the knowledge that all that money goes to us. It does not go to Apple ot HMV or Sony or some other massive corporation to whom your pounds are such a tiny fraction of their turnover but it all goes to us where it directly allows us to buy the petrol for the next gig or get the next cd pressed or even buy some food or something!

Believe us, we appreciate whatever people give us greatly and we are constantly amazed at how generous people are. In 2009 we made more money giving music away in a year than we have ever made in any of the 10 years previous of selling recorded music for fixed prices in shops, paying for PR and advertising etc… While we are still a league away from making a living wage from this we do believe that is the future for us and for many other bands.

If there’s one thing we would say it’s this. If you love a band find a way to give them money or help or just applause. They will need it and they will appreciate it.

Further reading:

http://www.creativedeconstruction.com/2010/05/music-is-not-our-currency/
http://www.newmusicstrategies.com/2008/12/31/why-give-music-away-for-free/
http://www.david-campbell.org/2010/05/13/thinking-freely/
http://www.stevelawson.net/2010/05/sharing-is-not-stealing-cost-value-and-the-desire-to-share/
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html