While appealing his copyright infringement case and potential jail time, one of Pirate Bay’s founders has been working on a way for people to actually give money to artists on the internet.

Peter Sunde said he has been thinking about creating a service to link artists to their fans’ money. Flattr is live and currently in beta, but is getting clogged by all the people swarming to try it out.

The way the service works is really fascinating, doling out user fees to artists based on the clicks of a site’s Flattr button. Sunde described it in detail to the BBC.

“The money you pay each month will be spread evenly among the buttons you click in a month,” said Peter Sunde.

“We want to encourage people to share money as well as content,” Mr Sunde told BBC News. “It’s a test to see if this might be a working method for real micropayments.”

The minimum Flattr wants people to pay each month is 2 euros (£1.73) but members can pay more if they want to.

“That way you have control over your monthly spending on content, and you can rather help many people than just a few,” he said.

It would be a great way for those countless artists between iTunes level and a local buzz band. Throw a Flattr button on their MySpace page and these artists have a virtual tip jar anywhere they want — all with zero operating costs for the artists.

Beyond musicians, writers, photographers, free web site designers, Flash game makers etc. could all tap into Flattr and let their fans show appreciation with more than their comments.

The only hitch is the monthly payment, I think it’s a great idea, but I don’t know if I would be up for paying $5 a month — especially if I’m not getting anything in return. I’d much rather buy a shirt from the band site instead of giving them 75 cents at the end of the month.

Sunde, however, has quite a altruistic view of his work, and I for one hope he can get everyone (including me) on board.

“We’re not really in this for becoming rich,” he said. “We’re doing it to change things and making people get money they never got before.”

“I know that people are nice enough,” he said. “People love things and they want to pay.”

[Via BBC]

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