You guys have heard of Kickstarter – that site that lets people pitch their projects for funding to the internet at large, and which has led to new apps, art projects, and a Robocop statue in Detroit. All of which stopped mattering when Amanda Palmer raised $500 000 in four days on the platform – with 24 days of funding remaining.

Palmer – formerly of the Dresden Dolls, wife of author Neil Gaiman, put up the project for her new album with a goal of $100 000. As of this writing, the Kickstarter project has received $570 512 in funding, and climbing – so she’ll probably just about manage to make that album.

As is usual for Kickstarter, there are various reward tiers for backers – $150 gets you exclusive art books with signed CDs, for instance. Just $1 gets you a digital download of the entire album upon its release, including bonus songs and Kickstarter-related content. Which isn’t bad.

More importantly, though, Palmer has just rendered the record label industry superfluous; artists now have the ability to raise capital recording, mixing, distribution, manufacturing, and promotion of their work without relying on clunky, vaguely vampiric record labels. Or so says Palmer, anyway – although it probably helps that she already has a large and devoted fan-base willing to shell out.

Still, yay crowd-sourcing.

[Source: Kickstarter]