Soulseek Records

Soulseek Records (or slskrex) is a community-oriented netlabel founded in 2002 by users of the peer-to-peer file sharing network Soulseek. Like many netlabels, Soulseek Records' operation is not-for-profit and advocates the ideals of the Creative Commons by allowing listeners to freely distribute releases for non-commercial purposes. All of Soulseek Records' releases are compilations collaborated on by members within the community. In 2003, Soulseek Records created a sub-label, SUAL, for the purposes of releasing single-artist albums.

Upon its creation, Soulseek drew a large userbase of independent electronic musicians, with a large number of them coming from the IDM Mailing List. In 2001, a handful of users began conversing about the idea of starting a non-profit record label as an offshoot of Soulseek. A user named Seedy brought up the idea of creating a compilation, and together the many Soulseek musicians were able to raise enough user-donated funds to print and sell their first CD - "The Soulseek Compilation". This was a basic compilation that consisted of songs that were chosen into selection by the user base in a client-wide vote. Along with the music was the artwork, created by Numbr - also a Soulseek user.

After the success of the first release came the second, known as "The One Minute Massacre - Volume 1". This was a concept album, written in a game of telephone sort of way. One person would create 1–2 minutes of music and pass it to the next person, who picked up where the first left off, and so on. The result was a continuous flow of music involving 40 different musicians.

Since then, the label has released numerous net-only albums.

Most of the decisions regarding the actions of the label are determined by the users through voting. Whether or not a project is released as an 'official' Soulseek Records release is determined by a vote - otherwise it remains in the pool. There is a monthly contest called The SLSK in which users submit any song they've recently completed in order to showcase new things they're into. The submissions are then voted on by the entire user base, choosing a top 3.

...
Wikipedia