Brian Camelio

Brian Camelio is a Grammy® award winning producer, musician and entrepreneur. Most notably he is credited as being a pioneer of modern "crowdfunding". In 2001, he created ArtistShare, a website and software application for creative artists to fund projects directly through their fan bases which later became the blueprint for many of today's crowdfunding websites such as KickStarter, IndieGoGo and PledgeMusic. In 2004, the first ArtistShare project won a Grammy award and became the first album in history to win a Grammy that was not available in retail stores. Since then ArtistShare fan-funded project releases have received a total of 11 Grammy awards and 34 Grammy nominations. According to Bloomberg News, he is considered to be one of the fathers of crowdfunding and potentially "a post-modern Ahmet Ertegun". In 2005, he was featured in the marketing book "The Big Moo: Stop Trying to be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable" by entrepreneur and author Seth Godin. As a pioneer in his field he has been an invited guest speaker at Judge Business School at Cambridge University, Midem, The Grammy Foundation at NARAS, ASCAP, NYU Law School, Pew Center for Arts & Heritage,The Songwriters hall of fame, The Future of Music Coalition, George Mason School of Law, The Juilliard School and has been an adviser to the Canadian Heritage Copyright Policy Branch when researching copyright reform in Canada. Brian is a U.S. Patent holder and a strong advocate of the protection of intellectual property rights for aspiring inventors and creative artists.