ReverbNation: You download music for free and we’ll pay the band

ReverbNation just announced their plan to have 1000 of their artists to start participating in a new Sponsored Songs program. This program will actually pay the bands $0.50 each time one of their songs is downloaded for free by a user. Yup, you get it free and the band gets paid.

Now, of course the question is where does the money to pay the band come from? You guessed it. Ads. A small branded ad will be placed within the album cover art of each download. The value to the advertiser is that it is passed along in the embedded work as the song is passed along by fans via P2P. They want you to share the song with as many people as you like.