Posts Tagged ‘Don’t Steal my Shit’

Don’t Steal My Shit? Pt 5 of 5

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

jack1

This is part 5 of another 5-part series. Which means it’s going to be the rousing conclusion. What else is left to say? That the end goal, beyond creative expression of artistic rap music… is money.

Hip-hop and profit go together. Scarface could have been talking about this industry when he laid out the progression from money, to power, to women. And while I always encourage my readers to focus on the music above all, it’s the money that provides the end motivation.

And really, that’s what the end goal of letting people steal your logo and content is. It’s a specific strategy to help you build your exposure, and boost your bottom-line. You have to give up a few pennies now, to make a ton of dollars later.

It’s a strategy that counts on karma, and the eventual benefit of increased exposure. Getting famous, then getting rich later as a result.

Of course, protect something that you’ve made if it’s great. Don’t be a sucker for the talentless leeches just trying to make a buck off other people’s creativity.

But I encourage you to let people steal your stuff. Contribute to the community, and have faith it’ll come back to you later in turn.

Give some stuff away. Feel good. Then get yours.

It’s a simple equation.

Don’t Steal My Shit? Pt 4 of 5

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Christopher Columbus montage

While exposure, as covered in part 3, is the main benefit to letting people steal your logo and content, it’s not the only one. What else is there? Contributing to the open-source community.

There’s no doubt that the Internet is changing the music industry. No longer is music being made by solitary artists is far-and-away studios… and no longer is it being sold one piece at a time to solitary consumers.

Music is being pushed out to communities, who weed out, change, and push through what they like. Approval and success comes directly from people. Not from some suit high up in a recording office.

And if your success depends on your community, why wouldn’t you focus your efforts on this community? I don’t see any reason why not.

Letting people steal your logo and content is an easy way to integrate into the groups of people you want to reach. You can contribute to listeners, and other artists… putting out your creativity into the collective intellect.

Best of all, by putting effort out into the ether, you receive effort back. Other people add and contribute back to your content, either improving your work themselves, or giving you ideas to do it.

Your shit improves… and you get better as a result. By letting other people steal your stuff, everyone wins. And down the road, everyone gets more rich.

Don’t Steal My Shit? Pt 3 of 5

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

http://33crosbystreet.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/bernie_madoff_newyork1.jpg

Alright. Since we covered the counter-argument in part 2, let’s get to the fun part. Let’s now cover what we came here to talk about…. the benefits of letting people steal your logo and content to spread your brand.

The first benefit of letting people steal your stuff is that you get more exposure. It’s a pretty simple concept. As the example in this post goes, imagine you have an ad on a car. You can drive it around yourself for a little while, and some people will see it. You do all the maintenance, get a little exposure.

Now imagine you open the car up to your whole community. Other people get to drive it around… and have the opportunity to add and maintain the car and advertising. Imagine how many more people know about your ad, whether through seeing it on the road (it’s out there nearly 24/7), or hearing about it through the other people who get to drive.

Your logo and content are naturally a little different than an ad on a car… but it’s the same concept. Instead of holding everything close to the vest, you open up your stuff to the community, and tons more people know about you.

Your logo will be spread everywhere, by everybody. And while you may lose a few pennies here and there while other people profit from your work… the dollars you make from the increased exposure makes it beneficial in the end.

It’s not necessarily win-win. But at the end of the day, when you’re rich… you’ll know you’ve won.