Imagine a record label telling a music fan ‘you can download and share our music through Kazaa, Grokster, Limewire or any other P2P system without worrying about a lawsuit, in fact, you might be rewarded for doing so’. Sounds strange coming from an industry that has filed lawsuits against everyone from grandmothers to young teenagers. But this is exactly what TCOOO told their fans when they made their music available via the Weed Share (WEED) system. The WEED system allows a fan to download a song for free and listen to it three times, if after three listens the fan decides that the song is a keeper, then they are asked to purchase the song before playing it a fourth time. If a fan buys a song and shares with a friend, that friend would also be able to play the songs three times and then decide if they want to buy it. That is where the real reward comes in, once a fan shares a music file with a friend who ends up buying the file, the sharer gets rewarded twenty percent of the selling price of the file.

TCOOO who currently have two top selling songs on Itunes and Napster, ‘Party all Night’ by Dre and ‘Stepping Razor’ by Bookman believes that the Weed File sharing is simply the best digital distribution model available today. Richard Morgan the vice president of marketing at TCOOO had the following to say, ‘Weed allows music fans not only to be a fan of a certain artist or group, but they can also become an independent distributor by promoting and sharing the artist’s songs with others and to top it all off there is a financial incentive for their efforts. This is indeed a digital revolution’. Well that is fine and well if fans decide to use this system to share music from the TCOOO label, but what if they trade the music through Kazaa or other P2Ps without going through the whole WEED process, would TCOOO follow the footsteps of the major record labels and go after the illegal file swappers? ‘Definitely not’ replied Richard Morgan, ‘we will never go after fans for sharing our music, that is what we want them to do, of course we prefer when they do it legally so we can be paid for our work, that is why we got our music ‘weedified’ so our fans can share in our financial success. They are in no danger or threat of a lawsuit if they download our music illegally, but we are trying to encourage them not to’.

TCOOO hopes their songs ‘Party all night’ by Dre and ‘Stepping Razor’ by Bookman will enjoy huge success via the WEED system as it is currently enjoying on Itunes and Napster. The label believes that has the bigger labels become less fan friendly, it is actually an opportunity for TCOOO to reach out to the fans and let them know that they are appreciated, and no record label or artist could exist without them. Currently TCOOO has releases from some of the hottest hip-hop and reggae stars including Dre, Bookman, Vineyard and Big Mook.

http://www.sharenewyork.com (Download WEED files and learn about WEED)
http://www.cdbaby.com/reggaegold (reggae gold, reggaegold)
http://www.cdbaby.com/anytypewar (Bookman The Stepping Razor)