So, what exactly or approximately is going on here?

Songjury.com is a web based music distribution company for independent artists, where the listeners determine what songs are available on this site by a voting process called the Song Jury. The way it works is that artists agree to participate and then their songs are uploaded to the website to be evaluated in the Song Jury. The jurors log in to the song jury, listen to the song and vote on the songs on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest possible rating of the song’s quality. All songs ratings will be averaged after 8 independent ratings have been completed by jurors. All songs with a 70% or above approval rating will be posted to the artist’s page. They will be available for public listening or download at that point. Songs are free. We have a ‘Tip Jar’ feature to facilitate tipping. After the cost of the transaction fees are taken out, the money is split one of 2 ways: 70% goes to the artist and 30% goes to a nonprofit corporation called Crossover Sound Waves Inc. to help families and individuals with micro-grants to help overcome problems related to disaster relief and accessing or sustaining housing; or an artist can support another nonprofit organization approved by Crossover Sound Waves Inc. and 95% of the tip proceeds from the artist's page will go to that organization. Crossover Sound Waves Inc. will keep 5% of the donation to support the purposes of the organization (after transaction fees are taken out).

What’s the Song Jury?

Any listener can be a Song Juror. All you need is an email account and a password and you will be able to log into the backend of the site and judge songs that are in the Jury Session. You can select your 3 favorite genres of music and will only be able to judge songs classified in those genres, or select ‘all’ which will let you sit in as a Juror for any song submitted. If you elect this, just make sure you don’t vote in genres of music you know you don’t like (people who don’t like the blues shouldn’t vote on blues songs). Once you judge song, it will disappear from your list. A Jury Session is completed when 8 Jurors have voted. Songs with a 70% or above approval rating from at least 8 Jurors will be made available for sale on the site. Artists will be notified if a song does not make the grade. If you have questions about how it works, email james@crossoversoundwaves.com or call him at 831-247-5870. It is a little complicated, but once you've complete the process it's easier the next time through. We're working to simplify the process.

Why don’t you use professional song critics?

Most songwriters crave feedback professional music critics however, we want listeners to run things when it comes to what’s available here. This is another revolutionary concept behind the philosophy of this site: ordinary people know whether or not they like a song without a music critic or a marketing department from a record label advising them to do so. People vote on music all the time in very tangible ways. When people listen to the radio in their cars and a song comes on they like, they turn it up; when a song comes up that they don’t like, they change the station or turn it down. Buying a CD, downloading a song, putting 50 cents in a jukebox to here a song or throwing a buck into the guitar case of a busker as they play music on the street; these are all forms of voting. We want fans to connect more directly with artists they like. This is part of the reason we attempt to narrow the field a bit in the Song Jury by trying to pair up Jurors with original songs from the genre of music they normally like to listen to. Nothing is perfect, and we will learn as we go, but this is where we’re starting. A new service will be started in the future with professional songwriters, but this may be a ways off before it’s available on this site.

What’s up with the charitable bit?

The founder of the company is a follower of Jesus Christ and has worked as a Social Worker since 1986 and has worked in various nonprofits along that path. Housing is a difficult thing to access for families coming out of homelessness, particularly in Santa Cruz County in California, where this company is based. Most people would agree that a car is no place to raise a family. Our shareholders are different in that they can be recipients of some of the proceeds from commerce on this site in a time of need. This kind of approach will hopefully attract likeminded songwriters and listeners who would like to make some kind of a tangible difference for a family or a person that needs to have more options around housing. File sharing aficionados may be more inclined to tip artists for their music if they know some of the money is actually going to help people with really critical needs.

Why do you ask listeners to tip generously?

We are living in some tough times and lots of people need help just to stay above water. We wanted to create a different way to help people in conjunction with people who write great indie music. Our operating costs are small, which means more of each dollar contributed goes to meet someone's real need. We are also endeavoring to make a difference in the community through the charitable work we are pioneering. If there is a little more money that goes into that fund, then more people can be helped.

Are songs on the website encoded with any Digital Rights Management (DRM) encoding?

Nope. That would cost money (and I tapped out my credit card to pay for the site as it is). The songs here are free range MP3s. There even seems to be a trend within the larger music industry to move away from DRM. There is also the reality that this company is not some huge record label with a large marketing department. It’s not even a label. A certain amount of viral marketing done informally through the web can be beneficial in exposing more people to great songs A listener that understands where the money is going may be more inclined to tip generously knowing that an artist is working hard to create good music that also helps people they care about, individual and families are going to be helped as a result of the tip. The the site can remain online to serve this purpose.

There are some features that are not on the site yet that would make it more user-friendly. When do you plan to make those changes (this could cover a variety of possible features- by the way, please send us your feedback whenever this come up for you)?

The goal for this site is that it will pay for itself. That would include any website development changes. If we're successful the resources will be there to continue to develop the website so that it is a maximally effective tool to get great independent music to listeners. If you’d like to discuss the possibility of investing your time or talnts to what we’re doing contact james@crossoversoundwaves.com.