According to an early report in The New York Post, Gizmodo founding editor and Engadget creator Peter Rojas is teaming up with Downtown Records to launch a new music venture called RCRD LBL. According to the source, the idea behind the venture will be to offer a mix of exclusive music from bands such as Gnarls Barkley and Cold War Kids as well as blog content all free of charge to visitors, using a sponsorship model.
Back in 2000 I tried something similar called FreeListen.com which got its moment in the sun in The New York Times, but this was back in the era of "evil" Napster and before the success of iTunes, when the music industry was still convinced it could maintain a stranglehold on the old model. The time is finally right for a music model that leverages the popularity of peer-to-peer downloads with the niche music editorial of a site like Pitchfork (but in blog format). There are few labels with better cutting-edge-meets-pop taste than Downtown Records, and Rojas has proven that his blog instincts are usually on the mark, so this could be a marriage made in music heaven (for the fans).
Until the broadband networks are closed and network neutrality is squashed, peer-to-peer is here to stay for at least the next decade. In such an environment the free music download stream is unlike stop, so the sponsored model is the most obvious last ditch experiment that just might save the music business. Welcome to the (possible) future of the music industry.
Photo: Edans
