Brian Louis Camelio is an American record producer, musician, entrepreneur, founder of ArtistShare[1][2][3][4] and senior consultant at The Camelio Group.[5]
Camelio, who grew up in Boston, began his music performance career at the age of nine and continued to pursue music at Clark University as a composition major. After finishing his music degree at the University of Vermont with a concentration in orchestral composition, he spent 15 years as a professional touring musician, composer and producer according to Celebrity Access.[1][23]
After teaching himself computer programming, Camelio started his first internet business in 1998, an online fundraising portal for non-profit groups. The business was not a success but the lessons learned led him to projects geared more towards technology.[1] Around this time he also authored and published college music theory textbook named Finale Made Easy.[29]
Brian Camelio with singer Willie Nelson and Blue Note Records President Bruce Lundvall on Willie Nelson's tour bus.
In 2000 or 2001, Camelio founded ArtistShare.[2][30][31][32] ArtistShare is recognized as the world's first crowdfunding website for creative professionals.[33][34][35][36] It also operates as a record label and business model for creative artists, which enables them to fund their projects by allowing the general public to directly finance, watch the creative process, and in most cases gain access to extra material from an artist.[37][38][39] In 2004, the first ArtistShare release won a Grammy for "Best Large Jazz Ensemble Recording" and became the first album ever to win a Grammy that was not available in retail stores.[40][41] This is the moment Camelio describes as being his most memorable industry experience.[1]
In a 2004 study by Cathy Allison, a technology expert engaged by the Canadian Heritage’s Copyright Policy Branch "to capture a 'snapshot' of current business models and technologies, and to contemplate possible future scenarios regarding the control and compensation for use of music",[42] Camelio is quoted as saying: "ArtistShare is the only viable solution that I can see. With the advent of the latest technology, it is becoming increasingly clear that there needs to be a fundamental shift in how artists do business. That shift involves the expansion of the product offered and a completely different payment schedule. ArtistShare will provide the platform."[42]
The Jazz Review stated in January 2011 that Camelio "now may be considered visionary for perceiving the direction that the distribution of musical recordings was headed in 2001."[43]
In May 2013, ArtistShare partnered with Blue Note Records to form a collaboration titled 'Blue Note/ArtistShare'. The Blue Note/ArtistShare collaboration was forged by Camelio, Bruce Lundvall, and Don Was, President of Blue Note Records.[44]
^Panel Discusses State of Music IndustryArchived April 6, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, The Commentator, The Student Newspaper of the New York University School of Law, Volume XLIII, Number 3, October 14, 2009, pages 1 and 4. Consulted on October 23, 2011.
