Red Box Blue - 2006: Selling Lines of Songs

2006: Selling Lines of Songs

In September 2006, singer-songwriter Jonathan Haselden had the idea of raising his profile as an artist by selling lines of his songs to companies, in exchange for a percentage of future royalties . He began selling lines from the song Rollercoaster and successfully sold a line to four companies Budweiser Budvar, TGI Fridays, research company Fresh-Minds and The Tussauds Group for £1,000 each. In October the same year, Haselden attracted media attention when he auctioned a line from his song on the internet site eBay . He posted the line "And when you're lost you'll always be found" with a starting bid of 6p and a mystery American buyer won the auction with a bid of £11,100. In doing this, Jonathan became the first unsigned artist to sell a line from an unreleased song for a sum of money with consequential value.