Offering users to chance to invest for something back in return is a very innnovative and appealing way of operating. Then there’s so many other ideas. Just take a look at all these websites:

Grooveshark
Sellaband
Slicethepie
Formyband
Bandstocks
Song People

and of course my own website,

Bandengine

You should check out this out: http://peoplesmusicstore.com

It’s completely new business model because on this site, it is people who choose what to stock, promote, and sell DRM-free mp3s from their own personalised store.

Its really innovative because we can sell music we love directly from our site or social network profile, and each time someone buys something from our widget store, we get a cut – “10% in the form of points which can be redeemed by purchasing music on the site”

The guy who has started people’s music store is also the one who founded bleep in january 2004. Bleep was the first online music service to offer high quality DRM free files at a crucial time – there were no alternatives to peer-to-peer networks.

cheers
ludi
http://peoplesmusicstore.com/rose_is_a_rose

We’re using an excellent service called bandcamp (www.bandcamp.mu) that lets us offer music streaming and downloads to fans. The service also offers fans the option to ‘pay what they want’ for a higher quality download. For us, the killer function is the data: we can see how many tracks are being downloaded and streamed, so we’ve a real sense of the success of our campaign.

I think we’ll see a lot more services like bandcamp springing up, not copycats, but other complementary ‘components’ in a band’s toolkit that can enable them to have a successful independent music career.

But music isn’t consumed like cheese (even though a lot of music is cheesy). No, it pretty much lasts forever now. It’s given away for free (via advertising) on the radio, and in shops, and between friends. How many times might one recording be “consumed”? Once it’s made, music can go on and on without restriction.

So the industry created these artificial restrictions, and they try to enforce them, but this will never work until the day they manage to have decoder chips implanted in our heads. And still we listeners believe that music must be paid for one unit at a time. It’s unnatural!

So how do I think music should be paid for? Well, if you hear that music for free and it convinces you that you want to hear more from an artist, why not pay the artist just for doing what they do directly? It’s easy for a few thousand people to support one person just by sending them some money every year. It’s almost like a subscription to the artist.

Imagine the “exclusives” such an arrangement could bring- you and a few thousand other sponsors would have the inside scoop on new music, who the artist is listening to, what they had for breakfast…

The music is free, it’s the advertising for the person making the music. Step up to the plate, put your money where your heart is, and pay them for being the wonderful, creative people they are. Hell, listen to my music- and join my sponsors. It’s easy, it’s fun!

somewhereoutwest.com

So, let me purchase the songs I want. I’d prefer no DRM, even though I don’t share files. I’d ideally prefer to purchase the music directly from the artist, although this isn’t very practical, especially when the artist is dead. There has to be some distributor, but the historical model is obsolete.