Music fans now have a chance to invest in musicians and even take a share of the profits, should the band become successful.
Slicethepie is a new startup that is hoping to provide the tool to connect Musicians with fans.

From the site ..

* Artists can raise money directly from their fans to professionally record albums
* Fans can become emotionally and financially involved at all levels of the music industry - scouting, breaking, investing in and influencing real artists
* Investors can gamble on, trade in and profit from the success of these artists
* Artists who secure finance pay Slicethepie a small royalty on album sales but keep all their copyright and publishing rights.

No doubt .. slicethepie will have plans to integrate into the major social networks, in particular Myspace, so as to build a critical mass of both musicians and fans.

Perspective: I can see this kind of trading place being applied to not just music, but to movies, books, product innovations, cars, banking products, even consumer packaged goods. The actual trading rules may be different, but the principles are to give your brands passionate lead consumers some control in return for their help / buy in to share in the brand’s future success.