u-bend's Journal: Popcuts music service aims to split the market difference.

Today on a work break, I read a CNN article about a new online music retailer that rewards its members by giving them a cut of future sales of a song they initially buy. The earlier a song is purchased, the more the person gets paid when it is subsequently purchased. The company is called Popcuts. Although even the CNN article expresses doubt over the long-term efficacy of the business model, I think it's an interesting idea. The founders are trying to strike at a market that doesn't really exist yet in any substantive form, namely one that ideally appeals both to artists and labels who want to sell music, and to fans, who want music for free, or to be somehow invested in the distribution of it.

So, sound business practices (or lack thereof) aside, my interest was piqued, so I uploaded my latest mostly-finished, semi-polished (i.e. probably not going to have too much time to revise, so consider it done for now) song to the service to check it out. For those interested in a service's design and user experience, the artist editor is nice and clean, easy to use, and beats the pants off of some social networking sites I could mention.

The end result? Who knows? I think it's a cool idea though, regardless of whether it works or not. Here's the song, which right now is not available anywhere else, unless you've broken into my backup server at home. It was instantly available in the new items list on the home page as well, but I'm sure it's long since been replaced by newer songs. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this service.

I originally published this on my blog here.