Sellaband
So I came across Sellaband a bit ago (on techcrunch). You’ll have to pardon their crazy thank you video when you click that link, just click the “continue to sellaband” link under the video, it’s the only way to stop it.
The site seems like an interesting idea, though. Basically, unsigned musicians sign up with Sellaband and put up some of their tracks. When they sign up they get 5,000 shares (in themselves) of $10/share. The goal is to sell all 5,000 on the site ($50k total) at which point Sellaband will provide them with producers and studio time and they’ll record an album. Then two things happen, they’ll put all those tracks up online for free (supported by ad revenue) and they’ll give the artist the CD to sell at shows. Here’s the interesting part, so you as a purchaser of 1 or more shares in that artist receive a part of the revenue on all advertising (on sellaband) and CD sales for that artist - a third of the ad revenue will be split between the band’d shareholders - or “believers” as the site calls them. Half of the CD sales go to believers (sellaband makes nothing off those, apparently).
I can’t tell if I think this is a really interesting idea or if it’s just a fad - I think, not knowing anything about how the music industry works, that it could really be something. If it can get enough traction from artists and believers - it could harness that elusive wisdom of the internets pretty effectively. Everyone loves free music so if there’s enough of it there the sellaband music site could become a destination to find and grab music by emerging artists. And there’s sort of an excitement level as you can watch bands approach their $50k mark, thermometer style, and the internets loves a good countdown.
Is this site sticking it to the man and giving artists more of the power or just replacing the man with more of the same? It seems to me like it’s a better deal for the artist - as far as I can tell there’s no long term contract, they are free to record and produce music outside the realm of Sellaband. So, if they achieve some sort of fame with the site they can simply start doing their own thing if they want. I guess the value of Sellaband to the artists is the professional producers and studio time they can get access to for free if they are succesful. It’s an easier route to some basic publicity as well. All these things could be had by the enterprising band without going through Sellaband, though.
All in all, I’d like to watch and see how successful Sellaband is and, in what may end up being the same thing, how successful the artists that make it to $50k are. There’s a lot of activity surrounding the music industry these days with the RIAA suing everyone, EMI dropping their DRM and everyone trying to figure out how to continue making a buck in the industry. I don’t know if this site is going to be the one that has it figured out, although, it seems like they’ve got a pretty darn good business model making all that interest on the money you’ve given them before artists hit $50k in addition to all the ad revenue, etc…
Anyhow go to Sellaband and invest in a few thousand shares. Maybe you’ll be the next music mogul.
