It's widely accepted that our new attention economy is the result of being bombarded by countless propositions and the "share to download" mechanic is not a new one amongst them. Songrab.com is, however, a fresh take on it, by making the reason to engage a far more meaningful one, with pure and measurable real-world benefits for musicians. It's a platform that will differentiate itself by offering 100 percent selfless support to local musicians by providing a platform for brands to let fans know they are willing to make a real difference by supporting local musicians directly.
Downloading music these days invariably involves you, an artist of your choice and either an illegal platform (like the pirate bay) or one taking a cut of what you're willing to pay (access models & DRM tomfoolery). There are a lot of these platforms out there now and musicians relying on paid-for digital downloads as a sustainable source of income, are as likely to succeed, as they are to benefit from spontaneous record label spending. The simple fact of the matter is that surviving as a full-time musician is almost impossible. Brands have an opportunity to support local musicians and benefit from a genuine introduction to appreciative fans with the process also automatically generating positive social reach.
songrab from Songrab on Vimeo.
Sponsoring brand and deserving artist"We know we'll be able to create a valuable moment for fans, musicians and brands to share. We know this because it's as transparent and as obvious as it gets. The only people who need to exchange money here is a sponsoring brand and a deserving artist. Nobody else needs the money to make music."
Team Songrab is Ryno van Niekerk, Matt Visser, Martijn van Maasakkers and Brendan Sterley.
The music industry throughout the world has always had a love/hate relationship with technology. From the first alleged killing of the record label's version of the industry with the humble cassette tape to the hugely exaggerated murder of the film industry by the recordable VHS tape. The industry has fought technological innovation at every turn since before the turntable and the simple reason is fear. Fear of the unknown and an undeniable fear of losing control of all the money this industry (musicians) generate.
Digital Rights Management was the knee-jerk reaction from the music industry to the fact that we can now freely copy music files on and off of CDs and hard drives. DRM basically tries to be clever about what you can do with the music file you buy and has largely been abandoned on actual music CDs, but is still very much essential to many of the failed online music distribution models. Songrab downloads are complete files, but the rights of the owner are completely retained by the aforementioned owner. Songrab at no time lays claim to any profits from the transfer of files between Songrab.com (on behalf of various performers and artists) and users of the site.
Website: http://Songrab.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/songrab
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Songrab
Musician sign up direct link: http://songrab.com/profile/register
Interested in collaborating/sponsoring? info@songrab.com
