Music industry gets web 2.0 shake up as fans grab a slice

Music funding website Slicethepie is aiming to shake up the music industry by changing the way artists are financed and helping record labels to spend their money more wisely.

Slicethepie allows artists to put their music into the public domain to be reviewed by music fans who can then choose to fund the recording of an album and even get a stake in future revenues.

Speaking to silicon.com, Slicethepie founder David Courtier-Dutton, said this model could provide a real alternative to the way the record industry currently works.

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He explained: "You have effectively four main [music industry] gatekeepers - the four record labels who decide what we should listen to - and radio stations who then decide which of those tracks get pushed out."

He said Slicethepie differs as it's designed to find the best music through music fans, "rather than somebody else sitting in an ivory tower".

Courtier-Dutton said: "Within the industry everybody talks about buzz and if there's buzz around a band they get signed. I'm just a common-or-garden music consumer and I couldn't give a toss if there's buzz around a band or not - either I like them or I don't."

Slicethepie claims the current system doesn't fit with the way people consume music or the technology available. "The internet has enabled us to build a parallel system," said Courtier-Dutton.

The website allows fans to review music and directly fund artists that appeal to them. Courtier-Dutton said: "We have an alternative A&R route that we can work with the labels as well as beside them."

In this way, Slicethepie can effectively replace traditional A&R as a way of finding new talent but also revive the fortunes of signed artists and finance records for those out of a contract.

And it isn't just about up-and-coming new bands. Well-known artists are already getting interested in taking advantage of it, according to Courtier-Dutton. "We're definitely expecting a well known artist to come through later this year," he confirmed.

Slicethepie can also help record labels as well compete with them. "There's no reason why [record labels] can't use us to identify talent," Courtier-Dutton said.

He explained that labels could put artists on Slicethepie to get feedback on the music instead of spending huge amounts of money on working out which bands will sell.

He said: "There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the industry in terms of discovering artists, making albums, selling them. The problem they've got is that the overheads and the costs they incur in doing that are now outstripping the amount of money they can make selling albums."