This summer, while talking to some musician friends about their struggle to get noticed, Andrew Kortina thought he might have a way to help them.
Kortina's online music company, PhilaFunk, has now been in business for two months. It has about 400 registered users from 37 states and 14 countries around the world.
Over the past two months, Kortina said, he has been marketing and programming the site - philafunk.com - almost nonstop.
He doesn't have Internet access at his small apartment, he added, so he programmed it from Internet cafes and Van Pelt Library.
"I spend more time at the Penn library now that I'm a graduate than I ever did as an undergraduate," Kortina said.
In the music industry, Kortina said, "basically any offer somebody gives you is going to screw you. The cut they give you is like 7, maybe 10 or 15 percent of your album sales, which is ridiculous, because the artist is the one making the music."
So Kortina started PhilaFunk, which allows any musician to upload his music for sale at 99 cents per song, the same price as iTunes.
But the difference, Kortina said, is that on iTunes the artist keeps about 5 cents per song. On his site, the artist gets 80 cents per song.
"PhilaFunk is a way to empower artists to be able to sell their music and take a fair cut of the revenue," Kortina said. "Anyone can join for free."
He sees digital music as eventually taking over the entire industry.
"The Internet makes it so easy to spread music," Kortina said. "It's just a matter of time before CDs are gone."
By giving musicians such a large percentage of the sale, PhilaFunk sacrifices some of its own profit, but Kortina said the company keeps 19 cents per song to pay for the site's bandwidth and its facilities.
The site is currently running an online "battle of the bands," with a grand prize of $10,000.
Every week for 40 weeks, voters will select one group online. Ten finalists will be then selected and flown to Philadelphia to record songs in PhilaFunk's studio. Those songs will be judged in a final competition.
Kortina says the money for the grand prize will come out of the pockets of himself and his friends, unless they find sponsors to help defray the cost of flying in contestants and paying the winner.
The company works out of a large building on Preston Street, near 40th and Market streets.
It includes a recording studio and performance space that can hold 1,000 people. It is a BYOB and open to all ages, Kortina said.
