UK startup People’s Music Store has announced a seed round of funding from media entrepreneur Paul Higgins, while also announcing a licensing deal with Beggars Group. Users of the site can set up their own online music stores, choosing from a catalogue of more than 250,000 songs from Beggars’ catalogue and other indies.The service has been in alpha for a few months, with more than 650 stores already set up. The company is the brainchild of Ged Day, founder of Warp Films and the music store Bleep.com. Each storekeeper decides which bands to sell and how to market it – for example by writing their own reviews or adding widgets to their social networking profiles or blogs.The main homepage then features music according to popularity metrics from all the stores. Users keep 10% of the proceeds from sales made through their stores, although rather than cash, they get credit to spend on music downloads.”I believe the collective knowledge of serious music fans is more compelling and can scale more effectively than any company can do on its own,” says Day. “That’s the idea behind People’s Music Store – giving fans the power to curate their own online stores, promote their favorite artists, and write about the music they love. We think this will create an authentic, new way for people to discover and purchase music online.”Examples of popular People’s Music Stores can be found here, here, here and here. Having indie labels on board is a good start for the service, particularly for the keen music fans and bloggers who are likely to be early adopters. As yet, there’s no news on major label deals to bolster the catalogue.
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