Last month, this column mentioned Sellaband.com, a site that enables fans or “believers” as they’re called, to donate towards an artist’s album recording fund and share in the potential profits. Sellaband scored a huge coup last week when rap hall of famers Public Enemy chose the site to raise money for their forthcoming album.
Chuck D, Flava Flav and co. are hoping to raise $250,000, the site’s most ambitious funding project yet at sellaband.com/publicenemy. PE have always been at the forefront of championing net music technology. They were one of the first groups to release MP3s from their own website and have advocated artist-owned releases for a decade or so.
“Believers” are able to buy single $25 shares and each share entitles them to: a numbered copy of the album, an early download version and 33% of the net revenue for the first five years divided amongst them. Continue Reading..»
Interactivity is the name of the game this week as Digital looks at sites which require input from general public.
An impressively ambitious project called Playhouse has been launched as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. The Liberty Hall building on the quays of Dublin’s city centre will be home to 100,000 low-energy LED lights covering 330 windows on two sides of Dublin’s tallest building and what they display is entirely up to you.
The project website – http://playhouse.daft.ie allows anyone to submit animations for inclusion in the project when it goes live officially from September 24 to October 11, using a small downloadable bit of software, imported images or video and your imagination. A word of warning to potential pranksters, each animation will be checked to ensure the type of crass content usually found on the back of school copybooks doesn’t appear on the Dublin skyline.
If you’re a horror movie buff whose always wanted to get involved in the filmmaking business but have no discerning movie talent, The Indywood Project offers you the chance to do so by becoming one of 2500 producers for the B-movie Invasion Of The Not Quite Dead. By splashing out from £20 and up, you can help fund the production and pre-order a copy of the finished film on DVD or Blu-Ray. Depending on how much you pay, your money also entitles you to a small speaking part, your photo appearing in the film or a share of the potential profits.
Take that concept and apply it to music and you get Sellaband – a site that enables fans to donate towards an artist’s album recording fund and share in the potential profits of the album if it is successful. If you’re interested in the concept though make sure you look around as this niche market is packed with sites of a similar ilk like Kickstarter.com and BandStocks.com. You may find an artist worthy of your finances and support.
