During these times that business models have to change when it comes to dealing with music, it looks like there is now MLM for it. As someone blogged on Digital Music News, BurnLounge seems to want to be the Amway for digital music.
As usual, the program would want to give back something to its members. To quote a blog entry on the IT Toolbox:
The revenue that would normally be spent on advertising is shared among the site owners in terms of a 50cent profit share per album sold- and a finders fee for those that bring other members into the burn lounge family. 50 cents may not seem much- but compare that to some royalties that artists are awarded from their respective record labels- burnlounge retailers share per sale could actually beat the signed musician.
So how much do you need to shell out for your own BurnLounge site? $29.95. And there are even three tiers of membership.
Tier 1: You merchandise your own store and you earn points for sales made.
Tier 2 and Tier 3: You earn money from sales and people who sign up under you.
That is why you have to make sure that you would have people sign under you.
As with a lot of MLMs, there are people who seem to be lucky and some of those are the ones who signed up early in the program and have many contacts who are willing to check it out. Maybe if you have the charisma to get others to sign up with you, after you, then why not? Then again, it makes one wary that it might just be the ones on the top of the tiers that are making the most out of this.
Would this really be the way to do business with digital music? Maybe, maybe not. Each of us will have to just wait and see for the next couple of months how this would fare. It might be something akin to get-rich-quick things. Remember, you will be investing your money on this. There are still some legal aspects to deal with. In any case, you could check out some information about BurnLounge here.