Website challenges music fans to put money where mouth is


Agence France-Presse
Last updated 11:02am (Mla time) 10/10/2006

AMSTERDAM -- Set up by two Dutch businessmen, the website Sellaband.com provides a link between unknown musicians and fans ready to invest their money in a system that promises to benefit bands, fans and producers.

"This site is the solution," said Johan Vosmeijer, the former marketing director of Sony in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, who left his lucrative job for the austere offices of an internet start-up in Amsterdam.

Vosmeijer and his business partner Pim Betist, a former Shell manager, both left their jobs to set up ,Sellaband.com, which was launched in August.

On the website unknown artists can post their music and fans can listen to the songs. If the music grips the fans, called believers in Sellaband lingo, they can buy a 10-dollar stake in their favorite band.

Once the believers raise $50,000 Sellaband will send their favorite artist to the studio to record an album and the investors can influence the artistic process of their charges via special chatrooms open only to them.

Once recorded, a regular version of the album will be available to order through Sellaband's partners or sold at concerts. Meanwhile the Sellaband website will also make available free legal downloads.

To make sure everyone benefits from the process all the income from the sale of the CD and the advertising revenues of the Sellaband website are shared equally by the artists, the investing fans and Sellaband itself.

For Emmanuel Pujol, singer of French rock group "The Fakes," which received $4,000 in investments in just three weeks, "the Sellaband formula is the right one."

Because "when major labels try to combat illegal downloads by offering sites that make fans pay small amounts per music download" they are always controlling which bands get selected for such sites, he explained to Agence France-Presse.

"The music industry has always been the same: on one side artists and producers and on the other side we the fans," said Rodrigo Frey, a 32-year-old journalist from Chili, who has invested in one of Sellaband's artists.

"Sellaband offers an opportunity to participate and influence the creative process. I want to hear the first new songs, give my opinion and suggest changes and contribute with marketing strategy," he said.

On Sellaband, believers are encouraged to promote the site by word of mouth.

"We tell them: tell your friends, post on forums, play your bands music to your colleagues," Vosmeijer said.

"This way everybody wins: the band gets better known, the website gets more visitors and everybody gets more money," he added.

But established players in the record industry are still a little skeptical of Sellaband's concept.

"The success of online music is often an illusion because being accessible to everyone does not mean that you will be able to build a professional career," said Herve Rony the chairman SNEP, the Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique which represents French record companies.

"However, the idea of transforming the community spirit of Internet into a community of investors is very good, but the question remains: how can you continue to generate added value that will allow economic survival?" he said in a phone interview from Paris.

In the first two months of its existence Sellaband has already attracted 300 artists and 2,000 investors from 70 countries.

"You help an artist to make an album that you would have bought if it were in a record shop and in addition to helping an artist to fulfill their dream you can also get paid for it," said Evrard Harris, a 26-year-old doctor from Birmingham in Britain.

"It's risky but it is also very exciting. Sellaband makes you put your money where your mouth is."

"In the beginning we mostly attracted music fans but now we are seeing people who want to make a profit," remarked Sellaband's Pim Betist who said he came up with the website's concept because he was fed up with the radio "that never played the music I wanted to hear."

Sellaband hopes to produce the first CD on its label in early 2007. The most likely candidate is Nemesea, a Dutch gothic/heavy metal band, that had already snapped up almost $13,000 in investments on Monday.


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we can let our local artists set their sights on this one or anyone for that matter :mrgreen:


LINK: http://newsinfo.inq7.net/breakingnews/infotech/view_article.php?article_id=25834