T

hese days, almost every musician has a MySpace page to promote their music to the world. Have you ever imagined  an Indonesian version of MySpace which emphasizes the musician, user and brand?

Music artists and fans, please meet www.popmaya.com, one of Indonesia’s latest great inventions. Popmaya, similar to MySpace and Reverbnation, is intended to promote your music or even to find the good ones.

However, unlike the other two, Popmaya is a locally made website which allows users to download music from their favorite musicians for free. If you think this is just another illegal file sharing website, then you are wrong. Popmaya guarantees the legality of every song you download. The songs are there with the consent of the artists.

For every song downloaded, the artist gets from Rp 250 to Rp 500 in royalties paid by the sponsors. What we have to do to be able to download songs is a mix between simplicity and complexity, depending on how you view it.

First, you must register as a Popmaya user (Popper). Then, you can share your profile, add other Poppers or become a fan to your favorite artist, just like on any other social media site.

If you want to share your music, you just need to click “create artist page” on your profile screen, fill out a form and upload your songs. You can also browse around for the latest news from your favorite artist or find an upcoming gig or music event.

If you’re looking for good music, then start searching for your favorite artist on the artist list, or search for recommended tracks and the week’s top track on the home page.

But don’t set your expectation too high. Not all the big names in music business are here. You will mostly find indie or underground artists. Some relatively popular names who have joined Popmaya include Last Child, Saykoji, Yacko, Soul ID, Amazing in Bed and Souljah. And of course, you can download songs that are made available to be downloaded by your favorite artist.

Here is the complex stuff. In order to download free songs, you have to connect your Popmaya account with your Facebook account, and you must “like” a fan page of a brand that sponsored the artist – and don’t forget to click the terms and agreement box and wait for another 15 seconds before your music is ready for download.

In a way, yes it is great that users can download songs for free, however you are also “forced” to like certain brands on Facebook that you probably haven’t got a clue about in the first place. And if you don’t follow those steps, well you won’t get your free music.

There are currently six brands sponsoring the artists in Popmaya: Fashionconnects, My Incredible Adventure by Melanie Putria, Rexona Men, Rexona Teens Eksis Abis, Lilo Online and Popmaya itself.

Every time someone likes each of these brand fan pages on Facebook, that brand must pay a royalty fee to the musicians they sponsored.

In short, it is actually a win-win-win solution for the artist, the user and the brand – Popmaya allows these three players to get the maximum benefits.

Just like its motto says, “when you believe that music is inside you, you’ll see that Popmaya is for you.”