Fallen Tech Blog

Steadman is a band. Steadman is a very good band. Steadman used to be signed with a major label (twice). Steadman give ALL their music works away for free!

Times are changing FAST because of the new advances in technology today. Your average person is still trying to adjust to all the new and different possibilities that suddenly present themselves. Change is necessary and inevitable.

The music industry, as we all know, is (apparently) feeling the crushing blow of Internet sharing of music yet they are not changing as they should. They aren't adapting. They are instead trying desperately to cling on to their precious "property" and "rights".

One or more new models are required.

Follow up:

One such model may in fact be the Freeware (free in cost) model that is working so well at the moment. Projects under the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) and other "nice" licenses give you their products generally free of cost for you to use, and seldom ask for anything in return. An interesting fact however, is that MANY of their projects survive quite nicely from donations/gifts. The principal behind this being that if you like something and are honest you'll pay for it but if you aren't you'll find a way to steal it ANYWAY.

Steadman is headed by Simon Steadman, a passionate, down to earth kind of guy. On the website they go on to explain how the record labels of today no longer exist to promote artists, and unless you're one of their top names (Madonna, Coldplay etc), you (as a musician) are not going to make money with their help.

(Simon) Steadman recognizes that a lot of people these days just steal the music they want via P2P (Peer-To-Peer) networks and the like. He notes that this is due to increased technology knowledge that Steadman says "is a good thing".

Simon believes that there is a perception that musicians are suffering from illegal downloading and trading etc but that this is not the case. He says that the labels are just trying to protect the artists, they are trying to protect themselves. The labels are the ones loosing money, the artists weren't getting any anyway.

Simon thinks that a music fan will support the band(s) they like anyway, and if they don't care either way they would find a way to just steal it. So, all their music is available for download for free!

Steadman's music is quite wonderful. They've got the serenity of some of Smashing Pumpkins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smashing_Pumpkins) more somber, peaceful tracks, the easy listening of some nice classical music and yet still some colour and flare, possibly a dash of The Beatles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles) thrown in too. The production quality too is A+. Really good music overall.

So, show Steadman (and the record labels) that this model works. Download their music and if you like it, seriously, give them some money - even just how much you'd normally pay for a CD for example ($30AU, ~$20US).

The Steadman Website (http://www.steadmanband.com/)