We first looked at the Republic Project in February this year, when it was still in closed beta with only a handful of artists, including Tim Myers, Dexter Freebish, Steriogram, and Still Time. During the beta period, the service provided a lot of help to these bands, but now that the site will be open to all bands, this amount of hand-holding won't scale and bands will have to use the project's self-service tools to manage their accounts. Bands will get a widget that they can put on their site or MySpace page to bring fans to their Republic Project site. On the service, they will be able to upload new videos, track orders, and set the price for their albums and a release date.

When we talked to Republic Project CEO Ryan Swagar yesterday, he stressed that the project is now open for everybody, no matter the size of their fan base or style of music. Bands can set the price for their albums anywhere from $2.99 to $9.99. All of this money will go directly to the band. In addition, the Republic Project will charge fans a fixed $1.99 transaction fee. Swagar also noted that bands don't have to produce full albums but could also use the service while they're in the studio to record just a few songs.

Focus on Video

Of course, bands are free to upload as much or as little content during the pre-release phase as they want, though to make the best use of the service, we would expect bands to update their fans at least once every couple of days. The Republic Project will hold all the money it collects from fans in escrow, just in case a band never actually finishes an album.

Once an album is finished and all the music is uploaded to the service, the band flips a switch and the finished music goes out to all the fans. At the same time, though, the band's site on the service will shut down and the band can sell its final product anywhere else as well. The service does not plan to become a full-blown music retailer and won't sell any of the tracks after the album is finished.

From what we have seen so far, we think the Republic Project looks like a great idea that is very well executed. We are also not aware of any other company that currently provides these services. The Republic Project fills a niche for both musicians and bands and it will be exciting to watch how bands use the service over the next couple of months.

For artists, the Republic Project offers a full range of services, ranging from the in-house design of the artists' web pages on the site, to reputation management and regular updates of the artists' presence on social media and video sharing sites. The Republic Project will not manage tours or sell merchandise, however.

Focus on Video

In order to produce the artists' behind the scenes videos, the Republic Project has teamed up with Flip, which will provide participating artists with its MiniHD camcorders. The Republic Project puts a strong emphasis on the video production and will edit the artists' video in-house. Only those customers who pre-order the artists' albums (or buy them after they are finished) will get access to the full-length videos, while the Republic Project will put teasers on publicly available video sites like YouTube or Vimeo.

Sounds Like a Good Deal

Ryan Swagar, the Republic Project's CEO and Co-Founder told us earlier this week that he believes that his company offers a better deal for both artists and consumers. The Republic Project keeps 30% of the revenues from all sales, which is similar to the cut that Apple takes for songs sold on iTunes - though most of that money tends to go to the labels and not to the artists.

Access to a band's site, with video updates and blog posts during the production of the album, as well as a download of the finished product will cost between $9.99 and $14.99. This is also similar to what other online music stores charge, though that obviously only includes access to the songs and doesn't include the 'box set material' that the Republic Project plans to offer.

We like the ideas behind the Republic Project: connecting artists and fans directly, providing DRM-free music, and helping artists to develop their digital footprint, while also allowing these musicians to bypass the trappings of traditional music deals. In the end, the marketplace will decide if this is something that users want - and that bands want to sign up for - but to us, it looks like the Republic Project has put together a very interesting package. Because of its emphasis on pre-orders, however, its appeal might currently be limited to bands that already have a strong, dedicated fan-base.