“UP!UP!UP! music” (Russia) is a music label that collaborates with numerous indie musicians and bands and presents actual and trendy music all over the world. Its founder, Ivan Zhbanov, better known in the music circles as DJ Imago, gave a lecture last weekend on the topic of artists and labels cooperation in the modern reality. During the lecture, he admitted that artists should allow pirates to distribute their works for free to become known and promoted.


Imago started his lecture with explanation of his mission in the music industry. He believes that too much music of poor quality is produced in Russia today. Worse still, this music becomes very popular, because people only listen what the largest music labels promote on the radio and TV. There are a few exceptions, of course, but the trend is clear: good music remains unknown because it only exists on the level its creators can afford – i.e., in social networks and streaming services which don’t monetize it.

Everyone in Russia would agree that the largest music archive in the country (or in the former USSR for that matter) is social network Vkontakte (InTouch). Everyone streams music and video from there, and many people only register there to do so, as it’s much easier than to install BitTorrent client and look for links on the trackers. Vkontakte has everything you want to listen and watch, but it is illegal. A couple of famous Russian musicians have already sued the network and got their millions of rubles, but the founder of Vkontakte, Pavel Durov, is a man of humor. He removed all their songs from the network as they asked and replaced them with the message: “The track was removed due to lack of cultural values”.

The problem is that Vkontakte doesn’t allow monetization of your content, while remaining a strong promotion tool. Any live performance has its “event” page on the network, and majority of them don’t advertise in other forms at all, because billboards and radio commercials cost money which indie musicians don’t have. Imago explained that Russia lacks platforms that could allow musicians earn money for their works. However, Russia was lucky enough to get iTunes Store a few months ago, and price of music is affordable there – you can get an album for a couple dollars and it’s absolutely legal. The country’s largest search engine, Yandex, has also started its own music streaming service, where users don’t pay anything, but the creators get 1 cent for 15 streamed songs. It’s not big money, but still something to start with. Both of the services are new for Russian artists, but the musicians signed with UP!UP!UP! label already have their works sold in iTunes and streamed on Yandex. Imago promised to announce how much they earned in a few months.

In the meantime, the main source of revenue for indie musicians remains live performances. The scheme is easy: you release a new track, upload it to Vkontakte on your page, get a hundred likes and announce an event to support it. Those who liked the track will come to listen to it live and you can get your money. That’s how Felix Bondarev, a young but talented musician from Estonia who signed with UP!UP!UP! does it – the 23-years-old guy has already released around 35 albums by his own, participated in recording of the albums of the US bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, and toured with one of the most famous Russian bands Mumiy Troll. At the moment, Felix sometimes has no money to pay his rent, but hopefully the indie label will help him monetize his numerous works through the above mentioned services.

The conclusion of the lecture is clear: music should be affordable, and the artists should cooperate with both the labels and the audience to make it happen. At the moment, free distribution of music remains a strong promotional tool. But that’s all about Russia, because nobody abroad would buy music with incomprehensible lyrics in Russian. What do you think? Would you pay for an album of, say, Sansara band which is now sold on iTunes?