Bridging the divide between digital and physical, DiscRevolt provides a tangible solution for selling digital media. Artists upload songs to DiscRevolt's website and design their own artwork for a plastic download card. The cards are then printed by DiscRevolt with a unique redemption code on the back. Artists sell the cards to fans at live shows, and the fans can then download songs or albums from the artist's online page.
Many independent artists make most of their revenue at merchandise tables after they play a live show. Audiences connect with a band or song, and are most likely to pay for music during the post-gig buzz. As bands are moving from CDs to digital downloads, they need something to hook potential customers when they can, instead of asking them to download later. Which is a challenge DiscRevolt aims to solve. The start-up describes its download cards as a cross between a gift card, a backstage pass and a baseball trading card. They're designed to be collectible items, attachable to lanyards or backpacks or rear-view mirrors. The fact that artists design their own artwork, and often make cards in limited runs, adds to the appeal.
Pricing is set at 500 cards for USD 250. Each card gives fans access to 15 credits worth of the artist's material on discrevolt.com. Artists set their own prices, but DiscRevolt recommends USD 5 per card, which brings the price per song to 33 cents for buyers, and gives artists a 90% profit margin. Since artists buy the cards upfront, profits are received as soon the cards are sold. Which can be useful while bootstrapping a tour ;-) It also provides a user-friendly download avenue for bands that haven't yet made it to the front page of the iTunes Music Store.
DiscRevolt is currently in beta, and is offering artists 100 free cards if they sign up before May 15th. The website currently only supports MP3 audio files (at any bitrate), but future releases will also support other media files such as video and PDF files of liner notes, lyrics and artwork. Something to set up locally? And although musical artists are the main target group for this type of service, how about BookRevolt? At lectures or other events, both published and unpublished authors could sell cards for downloads of audio-books or e-books, or supplements to printed work, or use the cards as a promotional tool, giving away digital copies of sample chapters without having to worry about hosting downloads.
Website: www.discrevolt.com
Contact: info@discrevolt.com
Related: Amie Street: Music at market prices
Spotted by: Ozgur Alaz
This is a really good idea; I can't believe this wasn't thought up sooner. I can see this being a real asset for conferences and conventions; and of course indie artists.
Awesome. This helps resolve the fact that there's no replacement for physical media, but there's no reason why music needs to be stored on physical media anymore (and there are reasons it's shouldn't be). This is the kind of thing I was talking about in my 1999 undergrad thesis... http://bionicdan.net/emd/ElectronicMusicDistribution.pdf
This helps resolve the conflict between the facts that there's no replacement for the feel of physical media in your hand and that there's no good reason why music should be stored on physical media (though there are some good reasons why not). It's an answer to the questions brought up in my u-grad thesis from back in 1999 - http://bionicdan.net/emd/ElectronicMusicDistribution.pdf
As soon as someone does BookRevolt I'm there! This is much more fun than what ebook publishers have been doing until now,
Yes, the 'hang it on a lanyard' collectable is a big plus. Yes, there's something tangible to value.
It's all much better than the 'hybrid' publishing experiment I tried at http://www.aliceinparis2007.com, but have been forced to abandon for technical reasons.
This is a great idea. I've worked on similar projects but this is beautifully simple. However, the idea of the band paying up front for the cards could be a barrier until the concept it proven.
There's a company called Drop Cards that's been doing this for about three years now and for half the price.
FYI, these guys just started to offer Download Cards as well: http://www.digstation.com/DownloadCards.aspx . My buddy's band got a bunch made and sell them at shows now. They love 'em!