I recently started making every song I produce publicly available and free-to-use, and it's definitely been a great decision. In addition to adding to a growing pool of amazing free music from around all sorts of artists, I've noticed that releasing music for free has its own benefits for the producer.
Listeners
New producers like myself face a great challenge when making the decision to share music. The challenge is to get heard. It's a really difficult thing to do! Especially in the niche genre of Digifu and VGM. Releasing music publicly and allowing people to do with it as they please greatly raises your exposure to new ears, even if you aren't credited. Typically, interested people have a way of finding original artists on their own. I've found, however, that when people use your music for bigger projects, you will usually be properly credited!
Income
Another challenge, and perhaps the biggest one, is making money. There's an issue with this concept as a whole when making music though. Especially for new producers who may be unaware of their skill level or what else is out there. When I was new, I wanted to charge for my music because I worked hard on it and felt entitled to some cash for the effort. Needless to say, I never made any money charging for the music I made back then. I've realized these days that there's just too many good artists out there making awesome music, and most of it is free! At the very least, free to listen to on platforms like SoundCloud or YouTube. When you open your music to everyone, not only will more people listen to it, but more people will pay for it too. I've made more than I ever have in all my years of hobby production (and 5 or 6 paid albums) with just one free album.
Conclusion
Gatekeeping your music will actively hurt you. If you got something special, share it with everyone! You will be supported by the people who really appreciate your music, and you will be shared by others who like it enough to do so, but maybe not enough to pay for it. At the end of the day, I see it as a win-win. Also, it just feels good to give stuff away. Make music because you like to do it.
Do you have any thoughts? I'd love to hear them! Do you release free music? Why or why not?
On that note, here's the first track from my next free album "Another Bag of Chips" A collection of music for game developers, content creators, and music-enjoyers alike!