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The record companies should experiment with sponsoring free, legal download sites in good faith. These sites would feature:

1) works of expired copyright
2) works from amateurs, fledgling professionals, and "past market prime" professionals
3) promotional works from professional artists, including items such as concert tapes
4) promotional works from the record industry, which would compensate the artists for giving away certain material
5) works from professionals who believe in sharing everything
6) works from specialized pros (like many classical musicians) who couldn't make money from selling records anyway

That already happened (just a few examples):

1. http://www.trachtman.org/rollscans/RollListing.php
2. http://garageband.com/
3. http://3hive.com/
4. http://www.apple.com/itunes/freesingle
5. http://last.fm/
6. http://www.classiccat.net/

this band isn't affiliated with the RIAA either. I've gotta agree with the parent: CDBaby and myspace are pretty good, although I've noticed that a lot of bands have stopped offering their MP3s for free on myspace.

Another site which I like a lot is 3hive, which does reviews of bands which offer MP3s for free.

I agree with everybody who says the problem with all the DRM-free music by unsigned bands is that most of it is crap. Sturgeon's Law strikes again.

The solution, I've found, is to find an MP3 blog by somebody whose taste you share. That way, they will do the filtering for you. Personally, I'm a big fan of 3Hive. A couple times a week, they post free MP3s made available by bands who want publicity. But they listen to all MP3s before posting them, and only post stuff they think is worth listening to. They have pretty eclectic taste, so you won't like the genre of everything they post--but they have GOOD taste, so everything they post will be among the better stuff within its genre.

This story isn't complete without mentioning MP3 blogs and netlabels. Millions of songs were downloaded last week from the tens of thousands of MP3 blogs and netlabels dishing out free music from mostly non-commercial websites. A quick look at a few of the best ones will reveal that a lot of the music being served up is top quality.

• 3Hive
• Gorilla vs Bear
• Clever Titles are so Last Summer
• Music for Robots

We use Microsoft Windows Media Digital Rights Management software to make sure all the music you have is fast, safe and protected. For more information about Microsoft DRM, click here.

Won't play on any open systems or open source operating system, won't play in any open-source player, can't be burned to an audio CD, won't play in either of my MP3 players (only one of which is an iPod), won't even play on Windows 2000 unless I agree to let Microsoft install a rootkit called Windows Media Player 9 (Windows XP comes with Microsoft's rootkit pre-installed, which is another reason I'm sticking with Windows 2000 for my game console).

Since I don't have a Golden Ear, I'll stick with the honor-system DRM that iTMS uses, or buy physical CDs since they're often cheaper than iTMS for classical music, and there's a much better range available, and the great stuff I find on audioblogs is rarely available through label-driven digital music stores anyway.

For more information about Microsoft DRM, click here.

If it's not playing I'm unlikely to go looking for it. It's not that I think the top X lists are at all worthy of paying attention to, but my time is precious and spending it filtering the out the 10k possible artists that I might like down to something that I could resonably listen to doesn't seem to be worthwhile. By the time I get it narrowed down, I'm dead.

If it's not in my bookmarks I'm unlikely to go looking for it. It's not that I think the top X sites are at all worthy of paying attention to, but my time is precious and spending it filtering the out the 10k possible web sites that I might like down to something that I could resonably visit doesn't seem to be worthwhile. By the time I get it narrowed down, I'm dead.

Just sayin'. There are linkfilters for music, just like there are for web pages. For example, 3hive and a whole pile of others, from the ultra-corporate to the ultra-personal. There are even tools that look at what you're listening, and recommend artists that other people who listen to the same artist also like.

I think Audioscrobbler works pretty well for this kind of thing. No intrusive 'rating system'. No isolated file downloading network (Gnomoradio, iRate) to divide the potential pool of artists. Just download a plugin and play the music you would play anyway. Go to sites like 3hive for freely available indie tracks and check your recommendations every so often. Simple.

I'm not affiliated with it, but I've found 3hive to be a great site. Every single day they post download links for a few tracks being offered for free by artists under small labels. The site seems to mainly do emo rock and punk, which frankly is either good or really bad, but it also covers other things ranging from electronica to hip hop to folk. It's just a damn good site and hopefully someone will find this link to it and enjoy it.