Crowdfunding campaigns like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo are all the rage these days. Anyone with an idea or a dream can present it to the world and receive small investments from individuals across the globe.
Now, Universal Music has decided to do the same thing: Uvinyl, the vinyl arm of the corporation, has launched The Vinyl Project, a crowdsourcing campaign to fund the reissue of out-of-print records like ABC by The Jackson 5, Sonic Youth’s Goo, Björk’s Biophilia, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John, His N Hers by Pulp, Hysteria by Def Leppard, Cream’s Disraeli Gears, and Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance.
What's odd about the campaign is that Universal is a major record label and vinyl sales continue to rise. While crowdfunding is traditionally used by those who couldn't otherwise afford a sizable investment, Universal has jumped on the bandwagon in order to eliminate any risk to their own profits. Although the music industry marked profits for the first time in 13 years, and vinyl sales increased more than 16% last year, Universal still wants the consumer to fund the initial investments.
Perhaps McDonald's will want people to pledge money to a Kickstarter for them to reissue the McRib.
Source: CMU
