February 9, 2009 Pay What You Want
This post is not an opinion, but rather a call for help..
Radiohead and GirlTalk...Both highly discussed distribution models that could play a big role in future digital distribution or at least experiements in what people will pay for. Without getting into the should you or shouldn't you, I was wondering if anyone knows how to? Is the application that the websites use something that can be purchased or found online? or is it something that each of the artists developed?
I would really like to try this with my music and after hours of searching, cannot seem to find out how to do it. If anyone can shine any light I would be highly appreciative.
Ciao
Alex
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Alex is an emcee and poet who is extremly interested in new distribution and fan relationship models. He finds amusement in the theorys that the music industry and hip hop is dead and has recently moved to LA to work with those who aim to change that type of thinking.
Reader Comments (2)
Granted, I haven't looked into this myself, but can't you use the PayPal donation system? You may be able to simply show the user an option to name a price that sends the amount to the donation system.
I did a quick search but didn't seem to be able to find a software solution -- you may have just identified a market need.
This Canadian online music store is doing user-determined prices. Perhaps you can ask them? It's probably a custom solution, but this site looks like it may be based on an open-source shopping cart system or something.
http://www.sheeba.ca/
Good luck! Please let me know if you find a software solution.
Ari Koinuma
SelfSufficientMusician.com
In case you're looking for a new website for your project, we just added "pay what you want" to Bandzoogle.com. It is integrated right into our music store feature.