The Open Music Store is an open source software package that can
be installed on any web server. Once installed, it lets the
administrator upload music (mp3s), graphics, text, etc. and then
presents to users a fully-functional online music store. Users can
purchase music (or whatever data the
artist is selling) and
download it instantly. Credit card transactions are (optionally)
handled by third-party services (like Google Checkout or Paypal).
There is a plug-in framework for integrating with these services.
Note this is not an idea for a single website. Rather it is an idea
for a software package that can be installed on any web server
(like WordPress, Drupal, or phpBB).
The goal is to make it easy for artists to be in control of
distributing their own content, instead of relying on centralized
mega-distributors (like iTunes or Amazon who take a large cut of
the purchase price).
This current state of affairs--the premise that large, centralized
resources were needed to distribute music--is a legacy of the pre-
Internet era.
By using the Open Music Store, all of the purchasing money goes
directly to the artist.
Well, there are still a few costs but there's reason to believe these
are trending toward minimal:
- Bandwidth and web hosting. This is definitely becoming cheap.
- Third-party credit card processing transaction fees. This burden,
credit card fees, applies to all online transactions and eliminating
it is outside the scope of this idea. The plug-in framework does
allow these services to be swapped in and out, hopefully
promoting more competition or alternatives to the credit-card-for-
online-purchases model.