We7: Ad-based Music Downloads Courtesy of Peter Gabriel

Posted on May 10, 2007
Filed Under music, file sharing |

Want legal music downloads that also pay the artist? How can you beat that? Well, music industry veteran Peter Gabriel (Genesis co-founder) and partners are now offering We7 music download service. Music audio and video downloads are free, provided you listen to an advertisement.

The demographic is 14-65 and during signup, you specify whether you’re a downlaoder, artist/band or advertiser. Which is odd because it suggests you can’t be a downloader and artist. A community section will be available by summer, showcasing new music, allowing voting, and the ability to communicate with other fans.

A lot of the samples there are mostly of veteran artists, though there is a “new artists” section. Both are currently tiny, but the site propaganda does state that they’ll have more artists as the service gains momentum. And with the likes of Peter Gabriel behind it, that’s a strong likelihood.

There’s no way to audio-browse songs before you download them, so I’m hoping they add something like this. I’d dislike downloading a bunch of tracks, only to find that they’re not what I wanted. In fact, there’s no way to listen to them online at all. They could use a player on the site.

The tracks I downloaded had a brief audio ad at the very beginning. So you’d have to listen to them every time you play a song. Apparently the songs are DRM-free and the ads change upon sharing. I’m not sure how that happens. I don’t recall the MP3 format being able to do that. You cannot, however, get rid of the ad in an audio editor. (I tried in Sound Forge.) The site’s proganda says that the patent pending advertising technology “grafts” an ad onto a song or video for up to four weeks. After listening to the ad-present version for that duration, you can download an ad-free version. Ad revenue for each track is split 50-50 with the artist.

This is an interesting concept, and could take off, and with backers like Peter Gabriel, will get serious attention from the music labels.

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