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[Ted Belmont]

There's also the fact that all of the promotion, manufacturing, etc costs that she was bitching about usually get taken out of the CD and ticket sales, but now, thanks to the magic of other people's money, she basically has no overhead on that end.

[Royal☭]

I can understand the embarrassment of getting $1.2 million and then not wanting to try your luck by hitting the well again. But it just seems to me that maybe a per venue kickstarter that basically says "Hey, we goofed on our calculations, and we'd really like some extra musicians for these shows. Note: this money is going entirely to the working musicians that play this show' that goes only for about $1000 or so wouldn't be so offensive? Sounds a lot less offensive than "We need to get volunteers for a show because all our money went to paying everyone else on stage."

[Rico]

Teddy: Kind of. It gets skewed when the model turns from "intending to pay for production costs" to "intentionally increasing production costs by a large amount to provide value for people who are donating," which Kickstarter does to most things. I know a couple people who have successfully used Kickstarter for album production, and it's a large issue that you have to be really really careful about because, as we see, people are bad at looking at raw numbers.

[Beat Bandit]

Rico you need to read through the post you linked again.

She was defending the kickstarter by going into the numbers of everything she needed, and why she wasn't getting over paid at all. Specifically this line stands out.

don’t forget: i’m CHOOSING to spend all this money making the packages fancy as shit….and i’m CHOOSING to tour this way. EXPENSIVELY.

i could send you all cheap-ass jewel case CDs, fire my staff, make a cheap book on xerox paper, and tour just with a solo piano…with no crew, no band….and RAKE IN THE DOUGH.

Because now she is basically doing just that (I understand she is not actually raking in the dough).

[Brentai]

The idea that she only expected to get $100,000 from the Kickstarter is confusing since:

first i’ll pay off the lovely debt – stacks of bills and loans and the like – associated with readying all of the stuff that had to happen BEFORE i brought this project to kickstarter.
for the past 8 months or so, i wasn’t touring – and therefore wasn’t making much income – but every step of the way, there were expenses. so, during that time, i borrowed from various friends and family who i’d built up trust with over the years.

i had to pay my staff and crew to get this album ready as well as keep the ship afloat and headed in the right direction. i also needed to come up with the cost of the recording itself (which was pretty whopping), and any other expenses the band racked up in the meanwhile.
to put a number on all of that behind-the-scenes stuff which just got us to DAY ONE of kickstarter: $250,000.

So God only knows what her master plan is in all this.  Somehow I get the feeling that she DOESN'T actually HAVE ONE no matter how much of a FINANCIAL GENIUS she wants you to THINK SHE IS.

[Ted Belmont]

ITT we realize that rock stars are not very good with money

[Büge]

LEAVE AMANDA PALMER ALONE!

 

[Rico]

Rico you need to read through the post you linked again.

She was defending the kickstarter by going into the numbers of everything she needed, and why she wasn't getting over paid at all. Specifically this line stands out.

don’t forget: i’m CHOOSING to spend all this money making the packages fancy as shit….and i’m CHOOSING to tour this way. EXPENSIVELY.

i could send you all cheap-ass jewel case CDs, fire my staff, make a cheap book on xerox paper, and tour just with a solo piano…with no crew, no band….and RAKE IN THE DOUGH.

Because now she is basically doing just that (I understand she is not actually raking in the dough).

I am not sure how that is not exactly what I said.

Brent: My feeling, from quotes like "i'm coming to you to gather funds so that i have the capital to put it out with a huge fucking bang." " but because we needed to see the actual demand for it, it wasn't something we could just drop thousands of dollars on printing up, and then bite our nails hoping we sold them all." is that recouping initial production costs was not an original goal of the Kickstarter. It was to get a little money for promoting the tour and to fancy up the actual product.

[Beat Bandit]

Because this isn't a "we sent out the posters and books, so now only have a fraction left for the game." This is "We spent all the money getting Havok and forgot to include character models."

[Rico]

I think you mean "The three alternate skins during the one sidequest."

[Shinra]

I think you mean "The three alternate skins during the one sidequest."

This^^^

I want to point out, again, she is still paying a backup band already. She is literally asking for 2-6 additional band members for 1-2 songs per set.

[Ted Belmont]

I think you mean "The three alternate skins during the one sidequest."

This^^^

I want to point out, again, she is still paying a backup band already. She is literally asking for 2-6 unpaid additional band members for 1-2 songs per set.

ftfy

Anyway, now that I'm not browsing from my phone and can reply in a less-flippant manner, when you get down to it, as someone else already pointed out, this is pretty much the same as asking artists to work for 'exposure'. No matter how you try to excuse it(she didn't plan well, too many other expenses) or justify it(they're having fun!), it's still gross as hell.

[Rico]

Untrue. The pay is not money. There are not enough details on the amount of the non-monetary compensation, but it could easily equal an appropriate dollar amount for two songs.

[Shinra]

I think you mean "The three alternate skins during the one sidequest."

This^^^

I want to point out, again, she is still paying a backup band already. She is literally asking for 2-6 unpaid additional band members for 1-2 songs per set.

ftfy

Anyway, now that I'm not browsing from my phone and can reply in a less-flippant manner, when you get down to it, as someone else already pointed out, this is pretty much the same as asking artists to work for 'exposure'. No matter how you try to excuse it(she didn't plan well, too many other expenses) or justify it(they're having fun!), it's still gross as hell.

I won't deny that it's a little distasteful but I think a mountain is being made out of a molehill.

[Brentai]

Well, probably true, and Hanlon's Razor is almost definitely at work here.

Otoh I get the feeling that this person vastly prefers the mountain.

[Ted Belmont]

Untrue. The pay is not money. There are not enough details on the amount of the non-monetary compensation, but it could easily equal an appropriate dollar amount for two songs.

Because you can totally pay your rent with beer, merch, and hugs.

[Rico]

I didn't invent the word pay, neither am I taking the offer to play an instrument for just beer and a t-shirt.

Perhaps you should follow the volunteers and ask if they're having trouble meeting $50 of their rent.

[Joxam]

When I couldn't sleep last night I thought this through for like two hours and I have to say that I am less and less comfortable with my previous stance on this. Mostly because of her stance against the music industry for doing things exactly like this. She's basically created a kickstarter so that she can do away with the music industry involvement in her music, but for what reason? So she can be the one fucking over the proverbial 'little guy'?

I guess I could almost understand if she came out and said she made a mistake and she thought it would just be interpreted as wanting to have a few fun songs with her fans and that she didn't even think of the money and it was totally all about having a good time with people who enjoy her music.

But that isn't what she did.

She explicitly defends her actions with how she spent the money, and don't get me wrong the numbers that she quoted do shake out, I'm just saying it looks more and more like she didn't quite get all of her ducks in a row and then just decided to say, "Fuck it, there are tons of people out there that would love to play with me and they'll do it for free beer and stuff."

And so, she's taking advantage of these people in the exact same way a record label takes advantage of people; and that is a terrible thing for someone with her reputation to do.

[Rico]

You do know that her blog post was written several months ago, yes? Do you have a link to somewhere she talks about this specific issue? I did a little searching and couldn't find anything. Her Twitter feed does include retweets of people being critical about her offer.

I'm not saying playing for free isn't a problem in the music industry (and really, the whole bar music industry is a piece-of-shit mess), but I just don't see it in this particular situation.

[Shinra]

And so, she's taking advantage of these people in the exact same way a record label takes advantage of people; and that is a terrible thing for someone with her reputation to do

She really isn't.

She's asking volunteers to play one-two songs in exchange for merchandise, beer, food, and face time with a celebrity. The details of what the compensation are are being spelled out in clear terms from moment 1. Artists aren't being mislead with contracts, they aren't being duped out of their time. If somebody is going to volunteer for this they're going to volunteer for it knowing they're not getting anything but what was explicitly outlined in the initial call for volunteers.