BuyaBand, SellaBand

At last - someone is trying a new business model for digital music:

For the first time fans and Artists can be in business together. Therefore each Artist issues 5,000 so called Parts. Parts cost $10 (plus transaction costs) each. Together Believers have to raise $50,000 to get their Artist of choice in the studio. At any point before your Artist has reached the Goal of $50,000, you can withdraw your Parts and pick a different Artist. You can even get your money back. It's your music. It's your choice.

Once your Artist has raised $50,000 SellaBand will assign an experienced A&R-person to this project. Together with a top Producer, your Artist will record a CD in a state-of-the-art Studio. During the process you will get an exclusive sneak preview of this exciting process.

...

The music on the CD will be given away as free downloads on our download portal. All advertising revenues generated on SellaBand will be shared equally between you, the other Believers, the Artist and SellaBand. The amount of money you and the band will get paid depends on the advertising revenues and the market-share your band gains on our download portal.

In some ways this is like vanity publishing: people pay to be published. The differences are that fans pay for publication - micro-patronage - published items are given away (because content has zero marginal cost), and money is made from advertising (the Web 2.0 way). I can see this working, provided the main company Sellaband isn't taking such a big cut from the ad revenue that it is perceived as a free rider on the work and money of others.

At least it's founders seem to have the right background, as well as an interesting idea. Here's hoping. (Via OpenBusiness.)