Beneficial to Bands

The Metal Crowd’s mission is to assist metal music bands in recording their music by gathering money through crowdfunding. The Metal Crowd also provides fans/donors monetary and non-monetary rewards in return for their support. What distinguishes The Metal Crowd from conventional crowdfunding platforms is that the process goes on after a successful campaign:

• The recorded music is available for free streaming on The Metal Crowd's website along with bands of comparable styles; this makes it easy for fans of similar bands to discover
• Bands are allowed to add the music to their website as a free web player
• The music can be purchased through a proprietary online store

Bands (and their record labels, if any) are given the opportunity to release and distribute their music directly to their fans without relying on big aggregators and distributors who rake in a large portion of the revenue. This strategy ensures a strong relationship between bands and their fans even after the crowdfunding campaign.

At the same time, bands are free to release their music through a record label or distribute it on streaming services like Spotify. Copyright ownership of their music will be retained so they have better negotiating power when dealing with labels and distributors. Additionally, they can receive conventional mechanical and performance royalties from their music.

The Metal Crowd provides the necessary framework for crowdfunding campaigns with the aim of boosting campaign success by offering two kinds of rewards to donors: monetary and fan collectables. Monetary rewards involve a share of the revenues generated by sales on The Metal Crowd online store, while fan collectables consist of music or media-based items, such as special versions of songs, remixes, outtakes, or unreleased demos. These rewards are valuable to music lovers and do not require the artists to perform additional tasks or obligations that could distract them from their music-making activities.

Beneficial to Fans

The goal of The Metal Crowd is to connect metal fans with their favourite bands, so they can partake in the success of the artists and build a mutually rewarding relationship.

Music fans who are donors have the chance to support their favourite artists by providing funding for their music recordings. With this money, the bands are able to release their music independently without record label deals or distribution contracts. Donors can also purchase music directly from the band and potentially win rare or unique collectables, such as unreleased songs, remixes, or individual recordings of vocals or instruments that are not typically available outside of the recording studio.

Donors who support the band have a vested interest in its success. Not only do they get early access to the music releases of the sponsored bands, but they also receive a portion of the revenue generated by the music distributed through The Metal Crowd’s channels. This portion is based on the relative amount of their financial contribution. If they choose to do so, donors can sell their stake.

Beneficial to Record Companies

The Metal Crowd provides an alternative way to fund music recordings, which benefits traditional record companies as well as bands. Record companies can use The Metal Crowd’s services to outsource funding to fans and supporters instead of them bearing the production costs and recouping the investment from potential sales and royalties. Such service helps minimise investment risk for record companies while still providing bands with access to the record company’s marketing and distribution channels, the ability to collect royalties from mechanical and performing rights organisations, its network, and its prestige.

Revenue Management

At launch, revenue collection is limited to the web store. Other options for collecting revenue will be explored in the future.

All sales revenues are deposited into a separate account with a publicly accessible balance. As revenue is generated sporadically, there is no set schedule for distribution. But at any time, the band or any donor with a receipt can request a payout not requiring permission. The procedure could be as follows: upon payout request, the collected funds are distributed to all stakeholders:

• 45% band
• 45% donors
• 10% The Metal Crowd

Transaction fees are borne by the person requesting the withdrawal.

Trading Rights

When sponsors make donations, purchases, or win raffle prizes, they receive digital receipts in the form of digital “Non-Fungible Tokens” (NFTs) that provide access to rewards and revenue sharing. Donors have the option to trade these NFTs on online marketplaces without The Metal Crowd’s involvement. The market value of NFTs is determined by the rarity and quality of the item and depends on supply and demand.