Music 2.0, SellaBand Innovates the Industry

Feel like your band is too good for the street corner, but not quite ready to hit the studio on your own? Well, the world wide web combines reality and fantasy once more. SellaBand is bridging the gap between starving artist and up-and-coming star by facilitating piecemeal purchases of bands by the internet community.

Not so unlike the soccer team that recently sold 26,000 person ownership, essentially each participating band on SellaBand has their forthcoming CD broken up into 5,000 parts, priced at $10 each. Once the artist hits that magic number of $50,000, they get their pick of the high powered industry producers and studios the website has on consultancy. All money is held is escrow until the goal is hit to assure the process is legit.

13 artists/groups have thus far achieved the full monetary goal, and three tracks from their respective CDs are available as free downloads. The other tracks are to be sold for $.50 each, the profits of which are to be split evenly between the CD sponsors, the artist, and (of course) SellaBand.

Based in Germany and only incorporated in 2006, the site has gained some decent popularity quickly, especially now that the music industry crisis has been brought to the forefront of debate. Between last.fm and Yahoo! both planning to offer full track listening, and Radiohead’s business model-shattering internet distribution, now may be just the time for a delicate balance like SellaBand with a Web 2.0 community twist.

So whether you’re a struggling musician or just always wanted to say you were “with the band,” here’s your chance to buy a piece of the Music 2.0 pie.