How Iron Maiden found its worst music pirates -- then went and played for them

[Egnever]

some bands are dealing with the issue in a unique way. A U.K. company called Growth Intelligence aggregates data on U.K. companies to offer them a real time snapshot of how their company is performing. They capture everything from real-world data, like hiring of employees, to online indicators like email to online discussion.

In the case of Iron Maiden, still a top-drawing band in the U.S. and Europe after thirty years, it noted a surge in traffic in South America. Also, it saw that Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Columbia, and Chile were among the top 10 countries with the most Iron Maiden Twitter followers. There was also a huge amount of BitTorrent traffic in South America, particularly in Brazil.

Rather than send in the lawyers, Maiden sent itself in. The band has focused extensively on South American tours in recent years, one of which was filmed for the documentary "Flight 666." After all, fans can't download a concert or t-shirts. The result was massive sellouts. The São Paolo show alone grossed £1.58 million (US$2.58 million) alone.

And in a positive cycle, Maiden's online fanbase grew. According to Musicmetric, in the 12 months ending May 31, 2012, the band attracted more than 3.1 million social media fans. After its Maiden England world tour, which ran from June 2012 to October 2013, Maiden's fan base grew by five million online fans, with a significant increase in popularity in South America.


http://www.citeworld.com/consumerization/22803/iron-maiden-musicmetric


Hats off to Iron Maiden! A much smarter reaction than Metalicas. And I am pleased as punch it worked out so well for them.

[tkmorris]

1. Lars is such a dillhole

I just needed to say that.

[vt_native]

7. That's Metallica

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Yeah, that poster knows.

[Initech]

13. Even the Dude thinks they're a bunch of assholes!

[marble falls]

16. And more people need to hear it. Lars is such a dill hole.

[OriginalGeek]

40. I happily bought their first four albums

On vinyl and CD. But after the Dill Hole opened his yap, I refuse to listen to those records. I do still like the songs though so I only listen to crappy quality mp3s I dl'd from Napster. Fuck Lars.

[MrScorpio]

2. Now that's how it's done

Bravo, Iron Maiden

[Matariki]

3. And the only folks who lose out are the parasitic record companies

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. Exactly.

But that's what's driving the whole homeland security/RIAA bullshit.

[reACTIONary]

19. If a band wants to work with...

... a "parasitic" record company, why shouldn't that be an option? My belief is that recording artists should have control over their work and be able to use whatever approach they see fit. A band that wants to avoid the record companies, develop a fan base through free product and profit from concert tickets and souvenirs can do so. Those that choose to deal with "parasites," for whatever reason, should not have their work ripped off and blasted over the internet to anyone and everyone. That isn't fair to them, and does not respect their creativity, skill and artistic accomplishment.

Why don't we let the artists decide? And why don't we support laws that give them the chance to do so?

[adirondacker]

39. "The little pig knows what to do, he's silent and quick, just like oliver twist; ....

Before it's over, your pocket is clean,
A four-legged thief paid a visit on you. "

John Fogerty - Vanz Kant Danz

[arcane1]

5. Their 2012 concert in South America literally made me teary-eyed.

Just the happiness of the fans, and the band's amazement at the size and enthusiasm of the crowd, playing songs that spanned 30 years... it was awesome. I'll have to check out "Flight 666" too.

[Mopar151]

24. Flight 666 is in pieces on You Tube, by song

Found it by dumb luck, I did'nt know..... Now i do OMFG

[MFrohike]

26. It's awesome

It's Maiden, what else can I say?

[Initech]

37. I am going to make it my mission to attend one of those epic shows.

[htuttle]

6. I've often thought that Bruce Dickenson was the smartest person playing metal

Certainly the most literate.

[arcane1]

9. And the best pilot/singer too!

One of the things that really impressed me about their aforementioned 2012 concert was how little his voice has changed. Most metal singers his age can't hit the notes anymore; Bruce nails them!

[jmowreader]

47. I wonder if Bruce can sing in German

Try this on for size: Iron Maiden and Renee Fleming doing Wagner's Die Walkure.

This is Renee Fleming:

[Egnever]

10. Well this response to pirating

pretty much proves it in my opinion. I think it is brilliant.

[OnyxCollie]

8. My first concert was Iron Maiden.

The Piece of Mind tour, with Fastway and Coney Hatch opening up.

It was great.

[OriginalGeek]

41. When I saw them

the opening acts were Saxon and Fastway. Pretty sure it was that tour - I saw PoM, Powerslave and Somewhere in Time tours and then a few years ago the Somewhere Back In Time tour. They always deliver.

[OnyxCollie]

42. I saw the Powerslave tour, too.

Twisted Sister opened up for them.

[OriginalGeek]

49. Dang! I would have loved a Twisted Sister opening act

I don't even remember having an opener on that tour...

[SansACause]

12. Grateful Dead model rediscovered

The Grateful Dead let their fans tape shows and trade them with each other. They made most of their money from touring, not from lawsuits. Some bands (e.g., Drive-By Truckers) continue to let fans do this today. I don't know why more bands don't get that "pirates" are often their biggest fans. Instead of suing them into oblivion, sell them overpriced concert tees.

[reACTIONary]

15. The Grateful Dead...

...is not a useful example given today's situation. Its apples-and-oranges. Dead tapes that I've heard are low quality (maybe not all) and serve a souvenirs and mementos, not as a mass-market product. This is very different from ripping a CD and then electronically blasting a full-fidelity recording world-wide to any and all on the internet.

My belief is that recording artists should have control over the work product and be able to use whatever approach they see fit. The Dead did it one way, Metallica wants a different approach, and my opinion is that it should be up to them.

[Egnever]

17. I dont think there is any doubt it is up to them

How they want to handle it.

What I find so awesome is the difference in approaches. On the one hand you have Metalica who chose to go all hard ass on their fans and I would argue have never been nearly as successful since. On the other hand you have Iron maidens example where they went to where the pirating was the worst and sold out huge shows and by at least this articles reckoning has significantly increased their fan base.

I like the idea that instead of trying to alienate their fans they recognized they had fans and went to them and let those fans spend money on them, and made a killing, I think Metalicas reaction had the exact opposite effect.

Theres a lesson here I am pretty sure. Bands are certainly welcome to chose their own path. I applaud Iron maidens savvy business decision.

[reACTIONary]

20. I think Iron Maidens example...

... is basically a very sound and business savvy approach. And "going hard ass" on your fans does not seem to be the right way to treat potential customers.

However, I don't think bands ARE in a position to choose their own path, because they have lost the ability to exercise effective control over the mass production and distribution of their work. Technology and the internet made the "free tunes" approach viable for a wider variety of artists; on the other hand it has eroded their ability to go the "pay per play" route.

I think the law should support those artists that want to take the "pay per play" approach while not interfering with those who want to take the "free tunes" approach. In my opinion, that would be the fair way to arrange things.

[Nevernose]

18. Iron Maiden never made money from tapes

There were a bunch of articles in Metal magazines in the 80s highlighting their business model: fuck the record sales and pirating, because that was all going to end up in royalty hell and corporate pockets, and make money from touring. This was a decade before the Internet at least; they were famous for it. That and merchandising. Their music always kind of sucked, but the posters were bad-ass and the concerts were fun.

[arcane1]

27. And Maiden was rich many times over before this, in large part to their record company.

It remains to be seen whether a band can start from scratch, and go global, with the financial rewards, without ever selling their music, and without an entity putting up money for tours.

[Gormy Cuss]

50. It's quite similar, just dealing with different eras of music media.

It's recognizing that once the band had a rabid fan base the real money for the band is in touring and merchandising; the selling of records/CDs/iTunes was secondary.

[reACTIONary]

51. Not at all...

...mass duplication and distribution was economically infeasible by the bootlegger. You could not reproduce and blast your Dead tapes all over the world within seconds, as you (literally) can do today. It required a fair amount of time and technical investment as well as more or less face-to-face distribution relationships to do the tape trading thing. Mass reproduction and distribution required capital investment, retail outlets, advanced logistics, etc. that could be controlled and limited legally. That just isn't how it works today.

[Initech]

14. Iron Maiden can't be stopped!

[Hayabusa]

21. Up the Irons!

Saw them in St. Louis this September and I was blown completely away. I have the shirt I bought at the concert ($40... but worth it!) in my closet now.

[Initech]

33. I saw them last year in Irvine.

The crowd was so electric that there were fires starting in the lawn area. Here's a clip of them doing "The Prisoner":

[reACTIONary]

22. Wow! That went WAY PAST 11 !!! (To be honest...

... I actually thought we were discussing Iron Butterfly and was wondering why you didn't post "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" . You may now roll your eyes, shake your head, and dismiss everything I said as befuddled boomer nonsense. )

[Initech]

32. In the times I've seen them they usually go way past 11!

[Mopar151]

34. Those guys could make Iron Butterfly's catalog sound good! n/t

[shenmue]

23. Good move

Instead of suing people, give them more music - and the band still earns money, too. So nobody loses, everybody wins.

[justiceischeap]

25. The funny thing is about pirating music is that artists tend to make most of their money touring

not from record sales. When a band is signed to a label, that label loans them money to record an album. Those costs include studio time, engineers, producers, sometimes session musicians, then you have artists for album art and copywriters for liner "notes." Then you have a mixing engineer for when that album is finished. Then the CEO's have to get their money and lets not forget about the cost of producing each CD and I'm sure I'm leaving lots of things out. So the album then gets released to the masses, where an artist is lucky to get a 7 cent royalty on each sale--because, guess what? The record company needs their loan back first and if an album doesn't sell well, then an artist may never see money from the album sales. So what do they do? They go on tour and sell merch--that is where the real money is made. Yes, pirating cuts into artist profits but not by much--it really does hurt the label more than the artist and that is why label's are trying to stamp out piracy. They couldn't care less about copyright, it's all about recouping their loan to that artist.

[Lizzie Poppet]

44. Depends very much on what level the artist is operating at.

Major label acts? Absolutely, and you make very good points about those artists and labels. Artists signed to bigger indie labels that can still do national-level tours? Very probably. Acts signed to small indies (or doing their own production/distribution of music) and who can only afford modest regional touring? Nope...those acts are happy to do any better than break even on a tour (and then largely through merch sales, not door receipts/guarantees).

People who steal music at least in part to "stick it to the man" (and I doubt many DUers are fans of big corporations...I'm certainly not) would do well to limit that theft to filesharing stuff from major labels and maybe big indies. At the very least, if you find you like what you've downloaded from a small artist and intend to keep listening to it, buy it. Otherwise you're not sticking it to the man, you're sticking it to someone who probably has to work at a shitty minimum-wage day job just to keep a roof over their head.

[LTR]

28. The music industry needs to learn to work with technology

Because technology cannot be stopped.

I can think of a couple examples. Radiohead's 2001 album "Kid A" was leaked long before it's release date, and was downloaded heavily prior to release. They embraced it, and it became their first #1 album. They even gave away "In Rainbows" online (actually, it was pay what you want). When it was released on CD a few months later, it also hit #1.

The next example is an odd one. Janis Ian was a singer/songwriter who had a few hits in the 70s, then faded. Roughly a decade ago, she noticed a significant spike in her royalty payments.She did some research aand noticed a few of her songs were being traded online.The younger fans who suddenly discovered songs like "At Seventeen" went out and bought hher CDs. After this, she embraced file sharing rather than try to put the genie back in the bottle.

Moral is, the artists that think outside the box and figure out how to embrace technology will find ways to thrive in the future.

[stevil]

29. Iron Maiden....

Is one of the best live shows you can see. There are millions of fans worldwide. And they have a kick ass manager. I see them every time they come to California. Love to see a band from East London become one of the biggest bands in the world, like it or not.

[liberal_at_heart]

30. I grew up listening to Iron Maiden. That is really cool that they did that.

[brentspeak]

31. Perhaps Iron Maiden can capitalize off of their live shows

but many recording artists cannot, especially those who are studio-oriented or who derive income from publishing or production royalties.

[Mopar151]

36. No foolin.... You should watch this YouToob video

And watch a quarter of a million kids stream into the stadium.

Those guys can make bank live 'cuz they OWN the road. Earned every damm dime.

[Skip Intro]

35. Maiden is huge worldwide for a few reasons, the music first and foremost.

Some of the best guitar solos I've ever heard. and Bruce's soaring vocals and driving beats from Nicko's drums and Steve's bass. Song after song, so many masterpieces.

Saw them for the first time in Raleigh this past September. Blown away by it all, band performance, set, crazy overflowing crowd. Can't wait to see them again.

"Die With Your Boots On" from a huge show in Sweeden in 2005:

[redqueen]

48. I saw 'em what... 20 years ago at least. Damn.

Good to see they're doing the smart thing and actually performing for the fans who obviously want to see them, instead of suing them.

[Logical]

38. Great, now many DUers will use this to justify stealing music. n-t

[L0oniX]

43. It's always been the tours that make the money ...not the records.

Records are just advertisement for tours. If people like your music they will come to see you. Iron Maiden obviously knows this too.

[Egalitarian Thug]

45. I wish I could dig up the original quote, but it was a recording industry executive

excoriating his industry for being the dumbest assholes on earth during the Napster fiasco.

Paraphrase here: "They had 70,000 people in one place at one time with the same interest, and instead of leveraging that market, they fragmented it, drove it underground where we'll never find them again."

The smart artists are utilizing the web and bypassing the industry, making more than they ever would have in the studio system.

[dogknob]

46. Yep!

[Bennyboy]

52. Big freaking whoop.....

ALL of the jambands have been offering their shows, right after the show ends, for about 15 years now. Phish offers it's show with the price of a ticket.

Remember the Grateful dead? They seemed to have done a similar thing as well.