Public Enemy & Their Fan-Funded Album

I came across this a few days ago and wanted to get everybody’s thoughts on it.  Here’s the article:

http://musically.com/blog/2009/10/06/public-enemy-to-fan-fund-new-album-with-sellaband/#tb

Public Enemy to fan-fund new album with SellaBand

Hip-hop pioneers Public Enemy have announced plans for fans to fund their new album – but also take a share of the revenues. The band are working with SellaBand to raise $250,000 in individual donations of $25. Fans chipping in will get a numbered copy of the album, but also a share of the profits – although exactly how this will work hasn’t been announced at the time of writing.

“SellaBand’s financial engine model goes about restructuring the music business in reverse,” says Public Enemy’s Chuck D. “It starts with fans first, then the artists create from there. The music business is built on searching for fans and this is a brand new way for acts to coming to create a new album with fans first, already on board.”

Public Enemy are the first established act to benefit from SellaBand’s new business model, which now allows artists to hold onto their publishing rights, and raise money in different ways to the scheme originally proposed by the site when it was targeting just unsigned artists. The band are one of the more experienced when it comes to digital, having been one of the first to release music as MP3 files.

“Working with Public Enemy is an incredibly exciting way to take the European success we’ve built over the past three years and offer it to stateside bands,” says SellaBand CEO Johan Vosmeijer.

And then part two of the story this:

Caption: Chuck D of ‘ Public Enemy ‘ performs Coachella Music Festival 2009 – Day 3 Indio, California …. Rap legends PUBLIC ENEMY are on their way to achieving a fan-funded album – they have pulled in donations of $50,000 . Last month , the group agreed a deal with SellaBand, an online fan funding engine, which gives devotees the chance to …