People’s Music Store, a new London-based digital download platform that allows fans to market music online, has signed a deal with Universal Music to license more than 300,000 tracks including songs by Amy Winehouse, Duffy, U2, Kanye West, Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Morrissey.
Universal is the first major to sign up with the service, which was launched by Ged Day, the founder of download service Bleep.com.
People’s Music Store is described as being powered by music fans. The Universal deal will allow users to promote and sell the music they like, earning 10% of the sale price in reward points they can exchange for tracks from the store.
Users can set up their own digital record stores, design the storefronts, choose music from the licensed catalog, write their own reviews, and market their store online on blogs, Facebook and MySpace pages using the widgets from People’s Music Store.
As well as individual music fans, the People’s Music Store works with labels and artists, who can set up official stores on the site to sell their music as well as via social networks or external sites by using the downloadable widgets, in addition to licensing their music for sale by other storekeepers on People’s Music Store. More than 1,000 stores have been created so far, including label stores by Rough Trade, Lex and Ninja Tunes, and artist stores by Nightmares on Wax and Various Production.
“We are excited to have the Universal Music catalog on People’s Music Store because it shows that forward-thinking labels are willing to try new ways of connecting artists with fans,” said Ged Day in a statement. “This addition doubles our catalog to 600,000 tracks and means that our storekeepers have even more options to choose from when stocking their stores. In this way, people can discover new music in an authentic context, recommended to them by peers whose opinion they trust.”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news