RedjackRyan
06-08-2006, 10:50 AM
A new Web site that aims to transform music industry economics is set to go live on Thursday, giving musicians a major cut of the proceeds while largely freezing out record labels and other intermediaries.
Lala.com, which allows fans to trade music discs for just $1, plus shipping, pledges to give a fifth of its sales to all the musicians, including lesser known session studio players, involved in the making of CDs exchanged on its site.
In a move that is certain to stoke controversy with music promoters, the founder of the Silicon Valley start-up said Lala will circumvent traditional copyright and royalty payment systems to compensate identifiable working musicians.
The site works something like an eBay auction exchange as it encourages consumers who sign up for the service to list all the CDs they may want to exchange as well as ones they would be interested in receiving.
Once an exchange is arranged, the recipient pays $1.49, of which 49 cents pays for shipping the disc, leaving $1 for the company for musicians, administrative costs and its own cut.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-06-08T000743Z_01_N07415707_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-MUSIC-LALA.xml
Lala.com, which allows fans to trade music discs for just $1, plus shipping, pledges to give a fifth of its sales to all the musicians, including lesser known session studio players, involved in the making of CDs exchanged on its site.
In a move that is certain to stoke controversy with music promoters, the founder of the Silicon Valley start-up said Lala will circumvent traditional copyright and royalty payment systems to compensate identifiable working musicians.
The site works something like an eBay auction exchange as it encourages consumers who sign up for the service to list all the CDs they may want to exchange as well as ones they would be interested in receiving.
Once an exchange is arranged, the recipient pays $1.49, of which 49 cents pays for shipping the disc, leaving $1 for the company for musicians, administrative costs and its own cut.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-06-08T000743Z_01_N07415707_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-MUSIC-LALA.xml