I remember my first encounter with a New York City street musician. I was riding the subway not long after I had moved to the city. As I sat, nervously awaiting an inevitable mugging, a gentleman dressed in some kind of thrift-store astronaut uniform and carrying a beat-up old alto saxophone boarded the train. “I am Saxtar, and I come from a planet far, far away,” he said dramatically (to the best of my memory, that was 1986). “I need money for beer and moon cheese, and unless you give it to me, I will be forced to play my saxophone,” whereupon he blew a series of incoherent licks notable for their absolute lack of musicality. His extortionist tactics worked; a few people dug out their spare change so Disheveled Martian Sax Player might spare their ears.
Disheveled Martian had it wrong; most street musicians attempt to play well. They want to make music and would like to be paid for it if possible. Now an Internet parallel to the street performer is enabled by Web sites such as Amazon, Fairtunes, and TipJar. Those sites have developed simple and (mostly) efficient ways for Web surfers to pay artists who provide them something of value. In the case of the online musician, that's usually an MP3.
WHAT A CONCEPT
It works like this: Visitors to your site download or stream MP3s. Liking what they hear, they notice a link to a “tip” site. They click on it. Up comes a page from the tip site that lets them pay money to the artist — usually through credit card but in at least one case by check or through an account maintained by the site. No amount is too large or small.
Can it work? Human nature dictates that few people will choose to pay for something they can get for free. It follows that no musician is going to fund his or her European holiday with the proceeds from an online tip jar. You could also look at it another way: if a few good-natured souls are inclined to throw a buck or two your way, you should make it as easy as possible for them to do it.
Is it worth your time and effort? To make up my mind, I checked out some of the online tipping sites that musicians are most likely to use. The following is not a scientific examination of those sites; it's just a review, augmented by comments from a few of the sites' users.
A JARRING SITE
TipJar claims to be the “original barrier-free transaction service,” having opened its doors (so to speak) in 1996. Right away TipJar has one strike against it: it doesn't take credit cards. Instead, it accepts pledges from donors who can fund an account or send a check to cover a specific donation. TipJar then disburses the money in full to the recipient. Donations and a few banner ads cover transaction and maintenance costs.
Does it work? It's a noble but unduly cumbersome idea. For TipJar to work effectively, the donor has to open an account with the service. He or she sends a check for a lump sum, and donations are drawn from the balance. A donor without an account can ostensibly participate, but the donation doesn't become real until he or she sends in the money to cover the tip. In this day of instant gratification and impulse Net shopping, having to write and mail a check gives the buyer too much time to reconsider.
Jazz guitarist Mike Germano has used TipJar. His views confirmed my reservations about its potential effectiveness. I asked him if the link to TipJar had brought in any contributions. “Nada so far,” he says. “I think I'll probably just take it off. I was hesitant of the whole tip-jar-on-the-Web-page idea but figured it didn't cost me anything, so why not? So I got what I paid for.” His experience doesn't necessarily mirror that of all TipJar users, but Germano's comments definitely reinforced my skepticism.
A MATTER OF HONOR
I had higher hopes for Amazon, which were mostly borne out. Whatever the company's quirks, it was one of the first to really streamline the process of online shopping. Its Amazon Honor System does the same for online tipping.
Enrolling is easy. Just follow the links to the enrollment pages. Amazon holds your hand through the process, at the end of which you receive a scrap of code to paste into your Web site. The code sets up a link to your personalized PayPage, where people can give.
There are a number of reasons to like Amazon's system. First, it has the Amazon name, which has a certain cachet. Unlike TipJar, Amazon accepts credit cards, so contributing is a simple matter. It's also quite well organized and easy for the donor and the recipient to use. Disbursement of your money is flexible; you can get it whenever you want, but Amazon automatically deposits it into your account every two weeks.
The downside is the cost: 15 cents per transaction and 15 percent of every donation, which means that a donation of one dollar clears only 70 cents. That might seem steep, but again, you get what you pay for: Amazon is an attractive and presumably reputable solicitor working in your interests.
Virginia-based singer and songwriter Dave Goodrich uses Amazon's Honor System, and as for whether it works, he says: “We're still hoping. We think [it] has great potential. The benefits can be tremendous: audiences can feel closer to the artist; the artist can cut distribution costs; artists who don't fit the mainstream mold can create new niches; and as a result, new forms of art can be fostered by a sincere audience.” Goodrich can't ignore the drawbacks, however — specifically, “public awareness [and] the public's integrity,” he says.
Certainly, public ignorance is a major impediment to online tipping's success, which is why using a service as well known as Amazon might actually help. Its repute might serve to spread the word. The fact that it's so easy for the potential donor to give makes the Amazon Honor System an attractive choice.
FAIR IS FAIR
Fairtunes is the only online tipping service aimed explicitly at musicians. Fairtunes was founded in 2000 by a pair of Canadian math students, Matt Goyer and John Cormie. The duo created the site as a response to the challenge of Napster and other peer-to-peer music-file-sharing services. As they saw it, the Internet has provided the world with the greatest music-distribution system ever; unfortunately, owing to the difficulties inherent in compensating artists whose files are shared, it's largely illegal to use it. Fairtunes connects the fans with the artists, letting the former pay the latter a fair amount. According to its mission statement, “Fairtunes will locate any artist the user specifies and forward them the money in a fast and accountable way.”
Creating an account is fairly straightforward; just follow the directions to start an account and establish a reciprocal link. Fairtunes can accept donations to any artists, whether or not they're registered users. It works essentially like Amazon's system: visitors to your site click on a link that takes them to your Fairtunes artist page, where they are able to donate money with a credit card.
Fairtunes is as easy to use as Amazon. Unlike Amazon, Fairtunes doesn't extract a fee. Instead, the site relies in part on contributions to keep it financially afloat.
According to Dave Noisy of the Canadian band the Noisies, Fairtunes works best when you work hard to promote your site. “Last year I was really promoting my music online, and Fairtunes was great,” Noisy says. “Several people left donations.” But once his promotional efforts flagged, the donations did too. Still, Noisy is overwhelmingly positive about the service. “Fairtunes can really make a big difference for an indie musician,” he says.
Jon Sobel, of Brooklyn's Halley DeVestern Band, is a Fairtunes doubter turned believer. Sobel was always suspicious of voluntary payment systems, “but we figured it couldn't hurt to give people a chance to contribute money to our musical project in this easy way,” he says. His band used Fairtunes for some time before they got results. “Nobody ever contributed,” says Sobel. “Then just this month, someone gave us a contribution through Fairtunes. Not $5 or $10, but $300! So there you go.”
CAN WE FIX IT? YES WE CAN.
Tipping will not make you rich, but that's hardly the point. It's my experience that people don't respect what they don't pay for. They have an unconscious attitude that if something's free, something must be wrong with it. At least give people a chance to pay; it might engender a respect online for your work that wouldn't otherwise exist. It might eventually pay off — the way it did for the Halley DeVestern Band.
Back to 1986. Not long after I ran into Saxtar the Disheveled Martian Sax Player, I got a day gig working in the gift shop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During my training, I learned that the Met, as part of its lease with the city, could not mandate a price for admission. Instead, it was allowed only to suggest an admission price, which at the time was about five dollars. In truth, you could pay as little as one penny and be granted admission to one of the greatest art museums in the world. Somewhat surprisingly, most ticket buyers paid the full price. Why? I think people felt guilted into paying the full amount; after all, what's five dollars to see some of the greatest artwork ever created? Perhaps the same thing will happen with online tipping. If everyone posting MP3s asks for contributions, more people might begin to feel an obligation to give.
