The tip jar is showing up in unlikely places. Online music store Insound will donate $0.25 from every MP3 album purchase to the future tour of one of six bands. Customers can give even more by tipping the band at checkout. No indication is given as to how those six bands were chosen. New bands will be rotated into the program two to four times a year.

The program is called Give More Get More. From the website:

We are pleased to introduce our new digital sales project that we call: "Give More. Get More." The idea here is simple. We are putting our money where our mouth is (and hope you'll do the same) in an effort to remind everyone why albums do matter to us as fans and to bands for their development and prosperity. We're literally changing the way we think about buying an album - what you give and what you get.

Key question: If a fan in a tertiary market donates, will the band route its tour there on its next, fan-funded tour? What, the band won't play Terra Haute or Albequerque? Then let the fans from New York, LA, Seattle, Chicago and Boston pay for the tour.

What is the "get more" side of the deal? A free, monthly MP3 mixtape. An odd choice given that indie rock blogs, label websites and artists' MySpace pages are awash in free MP3s. For this type of crowd, neither discovery nor quantity of music is much of a problem.

Why is Insound doing this?

Where do we begin? Ummm...to save the album, to give back to bands, to give more to you, to help inspire music discovery, to change perceptions, to change the business model, to make a difference, to show we can.

Such superlatives! The intentions are admirable, honestly, but this isn't going to save the album, give much to the customers or change the business model. To the contrary, donations will prolong any change to the existing business model -- the opposite of the stated goal. Donation-based business models can work -- see Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails -- if done correctly. Putting a tip jar on top of a retail price is a muddied model that sends mixed messages.

The implications of this program should seriously disturb indie rock fans. Charity is at complete odds with the very popular notion that the Internet is fueling a sustainable music middle class. Give More, Get More highlights music's Catch-22: record royalties don't pay the bills, but nearly all of them need record labels to get noticed.

Is buying the music not enough? Is going to the concerts not enough? No? Then adapt to the new marketplace. The solution is not to call on customers to prop up a business model that may have some shortcomings. If the system is so broke, do something legitimate to fix it (heck, even all all-out lobbying effort for government-funded indie rock endowments, a la Factor, would be a better solution). If the album is so endangered, don't try to prop it up with the equivalents of used toothpicks. Find a long-term, sustainable solution that improves the welfare of all bands.

One good result, however, is it could result in a little more money to a hand-picked group of bands. Changing the bank accounts of a few bands, however, matters little in the grand scheme of things.

(While writing this post I rememebered I have a "donate now" ad in this blog's left column. Readers may see that ad and think I'm putting down the very model I have adopted. Not so. It would be hypocritical if I had other sources of revenue. But instead of advertisements, I accept donations for my time and effort.)