AFRICA UNSIGNED

Here is another version of a "pay what you want" website. But this time, it is to promote African bands only. The concept is a little different from Magnatune. On Africa unsigned, you give money to artists you like, and once they reached $10,000 of donation, they will go to a good professional studio to record an album. Once the album finished every person who donated money will receive a copy. Nice, right?!

Source: AFRICA UNSIGNED

MAGNATUNE

Magnatune is an online music service which has built much of its business around the “pay what you want” model. Albums carry a low minimum price, with fans able to decide how much more to pay after that. It is an interesting concept that has been used by several websites already, but more on these later, for now enjoy the link.

Source: MAGNATUNE

SPIRALFROG

Launched last month, SpiralFrog lets users download music for free, in return for viewing advertising. In addition to viewing ads while searching for and downloading music, the service requires users to log in to the site and view ads at least once every 30 days, or the downloaded music for the account becomes disabled. SpiralFrog is built on a revenue-sharing agreement with participating labels, and currently offers a catalog of 800,000 songs and 3,500 music videos.

Source: SPIRALFROG

DROPLIFTING

Droplifting is a method of distribution that is interesting for new artists who don't want to wait until they have a record contract or a distribution deal.

It basically means that you go into a large cd retail store and put your own cd's in the racks. Then you wait until someone discovers it and tries to buy it, from then it's not sure what is going to happen...

Source: DROPLIFTING

SPOTIFY

The streaming-music sensation! To recap, via this application, you can listen to music from a very big repertoire, as the music from the four majors are available plus some independents. For free you can download a version of spotify, but you will get advertising, which some of us might think is annoying. A "premium" version is also available for a certain amount of money. With this version, the streaming is faster and you will not be bothered by ads. It is a good solution but probably not the best. Don;t forget, this is streaming, so you can only listen to the music when you have an internet connection!

Source: SPOTIFY

JAMENDO

Another website giving away all the music for free! How's that possible? By using a Creative Commons license. It also generates revenue via ads on the website for the artists who set up a shop. Users can also donate money directly to the artists.

Source: JAMENDO

CREATIVE COMMONS

Creative Commons is a company that offers licensing for music and other creative works. But what is interesting about it is that it offers a good alternative to traditional copyright. Because you have different kind of licenses - the creator/author can choose the kind of license - it doesn't limit creativity of others who might want to use your work. Which is the opposite of an all rights reserved copyright. We can notice that more and more artists are joining Creative Commons and I believe that the company has a very prolific future. To find out more about the licenses and how it works, use the link below.

Source: CREATIVE COMMONS