ReverbNation Pays Musicians To Release Free Music Downloads

ReverbNation announced today that 1000 of its 400,000 artist members will be able to participate in a new revenue generating Sponsored Songs program, reports Hypebot. The program will pay participating musicians $0.50 per free download. In essence, they will be paying musicians to release their music for free.

ReverbNation’s plan is to embed small advertisements within the digital cover art that is displayed every time a given song is played, and thus, spread ads virally, like the music itself, over file sharing platforms and social networks.

“Traditionally the music business has been synonymous with the record business where the lion’s share of revenue came from selling music. With reduced emphasis on music sales, the music business must develop new revenue streams that leverage the artist as a brand,” Michael Doernberg, CEO of ReverbNation said in a statement.

The digital cover art and songs are “branded” from the time you download them, and the ads can be tracked as they are spread to other fans. In this way, the advertiser knows exactly the size of the public a particular ad is reaching, and can derive a certain value from a freely downloaded and shareable song.

If advertising is to become the principal revenue stream for digital content, then advertising must evolve. YouTube has 20 hours of video uploaded per minute, and yet is struggling to pay bandwidth and storage costs. Their response is to preclude a 2 minute video with an advertisement half that length; an ad-to-content ratio users aren’t finding very appealing.

Adverts need displaying, and by embedding them in music cover art, perhaps the pain induced to fans can be assuaged. More importantly, musicians get paid. The Sponsored Songs program will begin in June, and bands will be invited according to ReverbNation’s Band Equity Score and fan profiles.

Will this business model help indie bands? What about the entire music industry?

[Hypebot]