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I'm subscribed to a reasonable active mailing list for the type of music I like (characterized by words like: female, singer-songwriter, alternative, ethereal, celtic, eclectic, folk, americana - although obviously not all at the same time; think artists in the range of Björk, Sarah McLachlan, Loreena McKennit, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Cocteau Twins - although that pretty much exhausts the list of big names, and 95% of our conversation is about independent artists who (imo) sound far better than most of those, but whose names you'll never have heard of), where people constantly toss out new interesting names they've just discovered, and write about shows they attended. (The name of the mailinglist is ecto.)

CD Baby with its decent 2-minute samples and rather good "sounds like" comparisons is another way I've used to discover new music. All artists listed here are independent.

Opening acts at concerts of artists I already like also frequently turn out to be worthwhile in their own right. That's not a very swift way to get to know new artists, but it does add up over time.

Finally, every other year or so I get together (in the real world) with a group of people from the mailinglist, and we all bring the worthwhile CDs we've bought since the last such meet, which we play for each other throughout the day. We also make sampler CDs for each other, so we can all go back and re-listen to those things which caught our interest and remember "oh yeah, that sounded really good, I need to go and buy that".

It seems like the majority of people here want to completely obliterate the business of recorded+sold music.

A bit off-topic but what you describe is only part of the problem. While they're being contractually forced to produce new "art" on a regimented timeline they also usually have all-day every-day to spend improving their technique and producing that new art as opposed to 1 or 2 jobs with music on the side.

That can actually be a problem though.

My wife and I started an online business a few years ago and it grew to the point where I could sit back and "let the money roll in" so to speak. We weren't wealthy by any standards but we were living comfortably and didn't have what you would call a day job. I decided to focus on my music. I practiced 8 - 12 hours per day and released an album (sorry for the shameless self plug).

You know what I found ? Practicing all day every day was a great way to give myself "musical writer's block". Most of the "magic" happens when I've taken a break for a little while. Even people who knew their entire adolescent lives that they wanted to grow up to be musicians and carry it into adulthood (and actually have talent rather than delusions) can find that they grow tired of it pretty quick when it's an all day every day kind of thing. That's one of the possible reasons why bands like No Doubt and The Beatles (not to compare them, just use them as two examples of artists that have been through this) radically changed their style and genre from album to album. The only problem with that is that if you do it too much your label might drop you since they often want clones of your original success.

Unless the person or store you're buying the used CD from originally stole it, the "jerks" have already been paid for it.

Don't fool yourself into feeling all mighty and superior for sticking it to the "jerks" by not buying their stuff new. Eventually you are still buying it. It really doesn't matter whether you buy it new (giving you money to the store) or used (giving your money to the person who gave the store their money), you can't escape the fact that you're giving money to "jerks".

If you truly want to hit the "jerks", look at buying from the independents. I do a fair bit of my music shopping over at http://www.cdbaby.com/ which contains a lot of independent musicians hawking their wares for decent prices. You also get the album artwork and the music on a nice pressed CD (great for archive purposes), although sometimes I'll get one that's obviously from a CD burner.

Do I buy stuff from the "jerks" too? Sure, if I like the music, I support the artist; even if they *were* stupid enough to sign one of the "bend over and take it" contracts the labels like to have bands sign. They might not get much, but at least they get some of my money.

The correlation here is that the more you download via P2P the more you buy CDs or legal downloads to the tune of 100 (more) downloads to 44 (more) CDs. But does that mean that the act of P2P downloading causes, or enables, buying more CDs? NO! The data does NOT show this at all. It MAY be that a particular segment of the population that would have purchased 72 CDs and done no P2P downloading at all, had P2P downloading never happened, has reduced their number to 44. My choice of 72 here is fictional for the purpose of illustration.

What the data COULD be showing is that the segment of the population that buys more CDs and legal downloads than the rest of the population has gravitated to doing P2P downloading and buying less music, but still buys more music than the rest of the population.

And that is not necessarily an indication of theft.

One plausible explanation is that this segment of the population is using P2P downloading as a means to sample music so they can be more selective about what music they buy. So, using my fictional number of 72, this explanation says that without P2P downloading, they would have bought 72 CDs and found they did not really like 28 which they would sell, store, or maybe even dispose of, and kept the 44 they found they do like. But with P2P downloading, they can discover better what they do like and dislike, and avoid buying those 28 CDs they know in advance they don't like.

And this will result in a decline of CD sales ... not because theft in the form of illegal downloading is replacing those sales ... but instead, because the buyers are no longer doing speculative buying in the hope that they might like it based on things like the cover art or the descriptions of the music or the say-so of some friends.

I'd also like to think that P2P downloading could include the ability to discover music that one does like, that they would never have purchased speculatively, but just started grabbing more and more tracks in a particular genre category because it was free. Then they buy a CD they would never have considered buying had they not sampled the track. So the number 44 may consist of some quantity that would not have been purchased without download sampling of 100 tracks.

BTW, I also count the free samples of most of the music you can get under the above term "P2P downloading" from sites like Magnatune and CD Baby. And maybe it is the case that more and more people are buying their music from these places, too.

you mean like cdbaby or more like Jamendo or DMusic and of course GarageBand?

I like to think that I wrote this song (Seven Layer Cake) as a teaching tool...

I call bullshit. Why would they pull out of iTunes? They can still offer DRM-free recordings at higher bit-rates on iTunes and they get more money for it on iTunes.
****

The simple fact is that Apple claims that it takes almost all of the $99 cents a song that they charge to run the site, so artists get very little in return. CD Baby by comparison gives 6-8 times the profit to the artists. (91% on average)

http://cdbaby.com/mp3 - the only problem is they have mostly smaller bands and the prices aren't very competetive(plus massively smaller sales/exposure) If Amazon can beat Apple's price, which I expect them to easily do, then they might be the middle-ground that many small bands have been looking for.

Plus, Apple's DRM is annoying. Unless you want to pay more for no-drm(well, not really - it's got nanny-ware/tags embedded). Jobs is a bit like a typical politician in that he says one thing, but really ends up doing almost nothing different when it comes to his bottom line. So Apple's DRM and inflated prices are still there. And, to top it all off, the encoding and bitrates aren't as good.

Plus the whole iPhone debacle has me not liking Apple recently. They're becoming their old top-heavy self of the 80s again.

Unfortunately, every time I've ended up at CD Baby, the CD has been priced at $13 + shipping or worse. There are even $30 CDs. So Trent's cited pricing issue may not be solved by CDBaby.

There are plenty of ways. We just need to use them.

You mean it doesn't all go to the artist?

This is why when I want new music I try to get them directly from the artist, or through a website like cdbaby.com which seems to have better service than big labels and hopefully gives more money to artists. It also seems to promote a lot of the little guys which is a nice bonus.

Ok, for all of you who were arguing back and forth about whether music should be $0.01 or not. A company has been selling CDs by independant artists pretty inexpensively. I'm sure if they were to start allowing downloads it could be pretty cheap as well, but probably not $0.01 http://cdbaby.com/home

Look into

cdbaby

magnatunes

jamendo

I've found some great music from all of the above. I'm sure that there are others.

Sabbatum by Rondellus

"Can You imagine what Black Sabbath would have sounded like if Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward would have formed the band in the 14th century? Would "War Pigs" or "The Wizard" have been as powerful if played on medieval instruments like lute, fiddle and harp?"

http://cdbaby.com/cd/rondellus

It's actually pretty decent stuff. I took the CD in for Yoga class one evening, if you can imagine a Yoga class to music by Black Sabbath. (It worked well.)

Despite what Apple charges for a set of its replacement buds, the earphones that come with 90 percent of the digital media players on the market are throw-away items--they're only in the box so you'll have something to listen to when you bring the player home.

I'm a musician. I've recorded and released an album (sorry for the shameless plug but it's only to put my post in context - honest). I own expensive studio earphones, have experience mixing and mastering etc.

I don't own a 5th generation iPod but I do own an iPod Shuffle that has since stopped playing MP3s. It still works as a storage device and I still have the headphones. I kept on to the headphones because I prefer them over all other ear buds I have. They don't beat the studio headphones, but I would not consider them "throw aways". I found they're pretty good quality and I began using them with all of my portable devices. I would generally agree that most ear buds that come with cd players and probably many other mp3 players are of relatively low quality, but I was very impressed with the ones that came with the iPod Shuffle. I will never throw them away.

I don't think the government is protecting "one side" in the case of the RIAA because the RIAA does not represent one side; it represents a cartel that dominates the recording market, but is neither a group of artists nor is it all of recording.

The fact is that the price of music distribution has gone down dramatically. I've been able to produce and distribute an album all my own, legally, for example, with legit pressed shrink-wrapped CDs and digital sales through iTunes and Sony Connect and everything. The digital studio I produced this with was all of $1k, and the distribution costs for 100 CDs are well under $500. I'm not raking in a ton of cash this way, but let's face it, this is well within the range of Joe Schmoe.

Where the RIAA comes into play is that the bulk of the royalties made from playing these recordings that I have made don't go to me. They go to the RIAA. The blank CDs have a tax levied on them that goes to the RIAA. This is my competitor in the market. The government is taking money from the poor to feed the rich here. I'm on the same "side" of the CD sales equation, but my ability to generate revenue is affected by the fact that these companies claim to own me, when I have signed no contract giving them these rights.

Now, does that sound to you like a "free market?" Me neither.

On the other hand, my CD is crap, so it's not like I'm getting my panties all in a wad about this. But if I actually put some effort and had some talent into this sort of thing, or depended on it for a living like many musicians do, I'd be outraged.

I don't think the government is protecting "one side" in the case of the RIAA because the RIAA does not represent one side; it represents a cartel that dominates the recording market, but is neither a group of artists nor is it all of recording.

The fact is that the price of music distribution has gone down dramatically. I've been able to produce and distribute an album all my own, legally, for example, with legit pressed shrink-wrapped CDs and digital sales through iTunes and Sony Connect and everything. The digital studio I produced this with was all of $1k, and the distribution costs for 100 CDs are well under $500. I'm not raking in a ton of cash this way, but let's face it, this is well within the range of Joe Schmoe.

Where the RIAA comes into play is that the bulk of the royalties made from playing these recordings that I have made don't go to me. They go to the RIAA. The blank CDs have a tax levied on them that goes to the RIAA. This is my competitor in the market. The government is taking money from the poor to feed the rich here. I'm on the same "side" of the CD sales equation, but my ability to generate revenue is affected by the fact that these companies claim to own me, when I have signed no contract giving them these rights.

Now, does that sound to you like a "free market?" Me neither.

On the other hand, my CD is crap, so it's not like I'm getting my panties all in a wad about this. But if I actually put some effort and had some talent into this sort of thing, or depended on it for a living like many musicians do, I'd be outraged.

Well, I don't know about Netwerk, et al, but I emailed CD Baby about it as soon as the EMI announcement came down the pike and they said they were already working on it w/ Apple, so at least hopefully soon you'll be able to get DRM-free versions of the songs I have up on iTunes so far. Or you could just buy the CDs now and rip the files :-)

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ viewAlbum?playListId=218127260
and
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ viewAlbum?playListId=218215721

So far they just have the regular setup.

(the cds are here)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bryanbaker1

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bryanbaker2

Well, I don't know about Netwerk, et al, but I emailed CD Baby about it as soon as the EMI announcement came down the pike and they said they were already working on it w/ Apple, so at least hopefully soon you'll be able to get DRM-free versions of the songs I have up on iTunes so far. Or you could just buy the CDs now and rip the files :-)

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ viewAlbum?playListId=218127260
and
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ viewAlbum?playListId=218215721

So far they just have the regular setup.

(the cds are here)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bryanbaker1

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bryanbaker2

I think cdbaby is a fantastic resource for unsigned bands...

I've never actually used it, but 'opaque website' is a step up from 'install root kit' so I figured I would throw it out there. Maybe try http://cdbaby.com/. I haven't used them either, but they are independent and seem to get along with their customers pretty well.

I'm getting tired of hearing people bitch about record labels and their drm, and about how musicians don't get paid when you buy a cd. It's all true, and I totally agree with you-- I'm just tired of hearing it from you, slashdot . So here's how you stick it to the record companies without pirating, AND pay the musicians: buy this cd. http://cdbaby.com/cd/pulseprophets

The amount that Apple iTunes gives artists (or at least, those who go through the CDBaby Digital Distribution as independents) on any given song is $0.637, and the amount they pay an artist for a "whole-album" download is $6.37.

Give either our first album or our second albumus a listen, and if you want me to send you drm-free MP3s of them, I'll happily do it. Shoot me an email and we'll talk...

The amount that Apple iTunes gives artists (or at least, those who go through the CDBaby Digital Distribution as independents) on any given song is $0.637, and the amount they pay an artist for a "whole-album" download is $6.37.

Give either our first album or our second albumus a listen, and if you want me to send you drm-free MP3s of them, I'll happily do it. Shoot me an email and we'll talk...

What happens if an indie artist signs on to a new label, and part of that deal is a transfer of exclusive rights to that artist's entire catalog?

The problem isn't technical.

And it's not like we indie artists are the ones screaming and crying about this. If you want the music of an indie artist using CD Baby for digital/physical distribution without DRM, you don't have to buy from iTunes; you can buy from any e-tailer that sells MP3's without DRM. You could even buy from me directly (if I'd get off my ass and make the files available).

As an artist, I do not give a rat's fetid poop where you get my stuff, just as long as you get it.

So it's not like DRM is somehow magically locking in the Indies who use iTunes and making us all WAAAH I'M SO UNHAPPY ABOUT EVIL APPLE WAAAAH. Not when I'm getting $0.63 per download through it, and more money through it than through all other electronic sources combined.

So if you're looking for indie cred by slamming Apple, you're not going to find it from indie artists.

I think that a multiprong approach is reasonable - my band (The Franchise) gives away a few songs on our website, sells DRM-free CDs, and then sells songs by track on all of the music stores which CDBaby will support.

So there's a matrix:

No DRM and Free
No DRM and $
DRM and $

(nobody really supports DRM and free, 'cause it's silly).

-David

Their record sales plummeted because the music they're selling sucks.

Just a quibble: CDBaby, another cool company, sells CDs for $14.

CDBaby actually sells CDs for whatever price you, the artist, want. For example, we like selling our CD for $10, online or offline. So we set our price at $10. And CDBaby sells them for that. http://www.cdbaby.com/meetgoodwin. Not often I get to stick a link to the band in to a response and actually have it be relevent ;-)

2. Sign those artists to highly unfair contracts because there is no other way to get music distributed.

"What the record companies can not apparently figure out is that if priced affordably, some sales are money in the pocket versus no sales and no money in the pocket."

Oh, I'm sure they know this, but what many Slashdotters don't know (after all, we're programmers, not marketers or economists) is that the optimal point on the supply/demand curve is usually the point at which the most money is made over time. It might make perfectly good sense to you that the right point is where you sell the most units, or where you make the most profit per unit sold, but that's not the classical way of picking the price point. And, it's a supply/demand curve, not a slope or a line, so people in the business of setting pricing (for whatever they're selling) must deal with elasticity, market size, and those other niggling things that we get to ignore when we write "just lower the price, morons!"

If you're boggling over this, think about Kenneth Cole vs. Sears, or, say, a luxury car company vs. Hyundai, or even Adobe PhotoShop vs. The Gimp. Kenneth Cole and Cadillac and Adobe could certainly move a lot more units if they lowered their prices dramatically, but they don't want to. It's not, as you've put it, because they "can not apparently figure out" pricing theory.

For what it's worth, CD prices have indeed been in free fall lately (new releases were $18 - $20 just a few years ago and now can be had for $13 - $14) as the industry reacts to new competition from piracy and whatnot. But Warner Music had something like a 6% operating margin last year... there's not much room to play with.

"Now, if they were smart.... record companies would *give away* music from bands just starting out and from the biggest bands out there and make money from tours. Bands in the middle of the spectrum could be the "middle-class" of the record companies that could provide the most profit after small bands graduate into the middle class and start selling their music, touring as they want."

The rough consensus among Slashdotters seems to be that the right way to run a record company is to:

• Charge much less than $13 a CD or $1.00 a track -- it's commonly pointed out that Allofmp3's Pay for the production costs of the music, but give the artists the copyright on the recording
• Pay the artists higher royalties

...to which you've added:

• Give away music and take a cut of the artists touring profits

If all of this is so obvious to so many people (at least here on Slashdot), it raises the question of why this hasn't yet been tried. Even Magnatune won't pay for studio time and asks that customers pay about $0.80 per track (and won't even accept less than $0.50 per track). Another really cool company, CDBaby, pays musicians well, but doesn't help with production costs and still asks for $14 a CD. And yet just about the only time we hear about either of these great companies is here on Slashdot.

Why don't you and a couple of other clever Slashdotters put your heads together and really do it right?

You're exactly right. As others have pointed out here, however, it's likely that the terms of the agreements with the big 4 require that all music sold on the store be protected with FairPlay. Still, I think this open letter may begin the process to a DRM-free world.

It was my fear—and probably the fear of many people here—that Apple's motivation for using FairPlay was twofold: one, that the music companies wanted it; and two, that they wanted to help strengthen the iTunes/iPod tie-in. Turns out, if Jobs is being fully genuine, that only the first reason is true. Which is a wonderful thing, because Apple is on the side of those who really get the future of music: savvy consumers and independent artists.

This calls for a grassroots effort to get Apple to alter its contracts with the music companies to allow copyright holders to specify that their music be sold without DRM. If enough consumers and artists start shouting loud enough, this just might happen. If Apple's hands are tied because of contracts, I seriously wonder if a lawsuit by an artist against Apple could force Apple's (willing) hand.

Ideally, of course, the music companies will just wise up, realize their old business model cannot be preserved with encryption technology, and give up the gun. But I'm not holding my breath.

Are there any existing activism efforts by artists to get Apple to sell DRM-free music on iTunes? If there isn't one, consider this post a statement of intent to start such an effort. I happen to be in a band that just released a a cd under a Creative Commons license. If nobody else is on the ball, I will contact people at Apple, start an open letter/petition, and hopefully get this first step—letting copyright holders decide if they want DRM or not—going.

• $2.20 per CD for 100 shrink-wrapped, color-printed pressed CDs,
• about $0.85 per CD in shop setup costs, amortized over the current production run of 100 CDs,
• $0.085x2 = $0.17 per CD in artist royalties for cover songs,
• a whopping $2 per CD to the artist for artwork (I was being generous since I knew I wouldn't sell many)
• CD Baby's cut of $2 per CD

Don't buy that crap, check out http://music.podshow.com/ or http://cdbaby.com/ or other places where you get non DRMed music you can buy from all around the world.

Oh, you want a physical CD?

Oh, shoot, well then you have to go here instead.

Silly me. :)

Interesting note: I tried offering the CD -- uncompressed, full-quality -- over Bittorrent for free, but couldn't get the Bittorrent tracker to work.

Apple is pretty friendly to independent music sources, as well - CDBaby has a deal where for a small fee they'll perform digital distribution, and I've noticed that iTMS is the overwhelming source of all of the digital purchases of my band's stuff.

Their payout rates to artists are as good or better than other services, as I discussed elsewhere.

So while no-DRM would be ideal, Apple's approach isn't unfriendly to indie musicians.

Here is the song http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/lyonsdana5-01.m3u
and the lyrics http://www.danalyons.com/lyrics/lyrics_for_public/ cows_with_guns_lyrics.html

For the number of people out there saying 'i wish i could support the artists directly', well, we're out there and there are ways to do it

The MPAA has done everything possible in order to NOT get any of my dollars. Nearly every film out is some formulaic droll foisted on a demographic that I am generally not a part of. Nor are any of my friends or family! So not only do they not generally OFFER things for which I can throw hard earned money away, the things they do offer that hold some interest are generally of such low quality acting (Keanu Reeves can NOT act), awful script (The last major blockbuster movie with decent dialog I can't even remember), and then they are charging way too much for it. I know a DVD costs like twenty five cents to make, including the box it comes in. I'm not spending $17.99 on some movie with no plot, no acting, no dialog, and no continuity, even on the rare occasion it IS about something I'm even remotely interested in, which is INCREDIBLY uncommon.

I'm also definitely not going to a theater to watch it once, get way over charged for soda and popcorn, and probably sit by somebody who doesn't turn off their phone, smells bad, is partying loudly with a six pack of beer (which I myself have done at some of these movies, in an attempt to improve their observed quality), or is making out with another teenager in ways that are not only illegal to be watching, but so badly done as to be more embarrassing than erotic.

I generally enjoy documentaries and WELL MADE films. They are almost NEVER available at the theater, and are also extraordinarily rare at Blockbuster, Hollywood, or any of the other cookie cutter corporate rental chains that do not offer any services for individuals like me whatsoever.

If movie makers want to make money again, they are going to have to start making decent movies. It's unbelievable to me that crappy sequels like X-men 3 make as much money as they do, but when the alternative is crappy sequels to "Bridget Jones' Diary", I can't actually say I'm even mildly surprised.

This entire rant can also be copied nearly verbatim for the RIAA and why I don't purchase many albums from corporate labels anymore, either. Just substitute the words movie and album, and swap theater with concert venue, most of which are also shitty corporate owned parks that also over charge for shitty unhealthy beverages.

If you want to see a GREAT movie you've never even heard of, check out http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00000IQC5/ sr=8-1/qid=1167268342/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-4951360- 3451255?ie=UTF8&s=dvd. It's got a great script, plot, dialog, and acting.

This is a shameless plug, but if you want a great album check out http://cdbaby.com/cd/leperkhanz/.

Otherwise, trolling http://www.mininova.org/ and http://btjunkie.org/ are going to yield better music and movie offerings than any local corporate theater or rental house.

rhY

Don't need to borrow a Mac, I own four (one of which, due to a careless incident involving irreplacable single-malt scotch, is defunct). So now you're wondering, "Dude, you've got... Macs... up the wazoo... whyyyyy?"

The reason is, building a music workstation is a massive money and time investment. Money, because buying the proper cabling, software and gizmos is expensive. Time, because learning how to use that equipment properly doesn't happen overnight.

Since I really just do music production for a hobby (and the occasional vanity CD), that means I invest in new software and hardware once every, oh, ten or twelve years.

We're in year 6 for the old system.

Because of the need for an entire industry to work together, audio interfaces change even less often than that. MIDI is still the only way to get control data to and from legacy equipment, and is thus a required portion of any setup. S/PDIF will be around for a long time because it's more than good enough for pro recording quality and it's a standard.

What's ironic is that DirectX had become such a terrific multimedia I/O system that Windows was becoming a much more capable system for music development than Mac (and it pains me to admit that). And both are light years beyond what Linux can do. Good LORD is sound ever a mess under Linux.

So the point is not just that I won't be buying Vista to replace XP on my music machine anytime soon; the point is that 4 years from now, when it comes time to replace my existing music machine, I will be effectively locked out of any Windows-based solution.

Of course, a lot can happen in 4 years. Maybe Microsoft will realize their error and un-gimp their OS by then. Maybe Linux will have a sound architecture w... I can't even finish that sentence, let's stick to reality. Yeah, the next machine pretty much has to be an Apple, provided Apple doesn't do anything goofy like this.

You're not buying in just one genre? All I see listed is a bunch of electronic crap.

And artist would be better off to publish it themselves, say an advert attached to a mp4 and distribute it for free. The advertisers would pay them more and no overhead and less risk. Maybe Google might be interested....

That is actually a killer idea, and it's worked for television so far. I just wonder how one could make it work for digital audio? Well, I haven't visited Napster in a while, isn't that how they were going to do it? Another option I've come across is http://cdbaby.com/. They only print liners & press CDs when a customer actually orders one, so you only have to sell a few CDs to break even (e.g., a $15 CD will break even at just 6 sales). They also distribute downloads through iTunes, Yahoo!, Rhapsody, Napster, etc., so I may end up trying them out one day...

Anyway, brilliant idea about ad-driven music distribution. I hope Google, Napster, and pals are listening! Cheers.

Ok, so maybe my post was a bit of a rant, but at least I'm not throwing curse words around, in the voice of God, guessing at people's sexual preference (wrongly), while posing as omnipotent, and also, posting as an Anonymous Coward.

God:
    If you are so bad ass, use a real /. ID so we can see all of your profound earthly achievements that are somehow vastly superior to the violin career I've sweated over for more than a decade. And it's LeperKhanz all one word. If you're going to give me press (shitty is still good, according to some), at least do it in a way that is valuable and allows people to google it. Actually, here, god, check out my violin:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/leperkhanz

Proceed with the gay bashing comments and such. I'm here with my name and FACE online, completely unafraid of you, or any other deity impostor. And I'm proud of my achievements and can take a healthy dose of criticism on my way to hell, where I'll laugh at you for pretending to be superior, when it's obviously me who has a better sense of humor.

Nice troll, though. I mean, minus the unnecessary and clearly uneducated over use of cussing and vehement stupidity.

rhY

Wow. That's impressive coverage...

You need to upload an image for last.fm.

CD Baby

Well, you're perfectly welcome to purchase my CD for just $2.38 more than the cost of the same thing with DRM and gain the benefits.

Or you can just use QTFairPlay and strip the DRM off once you've bought the iTunes version.

I don't care either way.

Enjoy the music!

The market is properly countering the media cartel, and that's through piracy.

Actually the market is slowly turning in favor of independent musicians. Granted, right now that market is very chaotic (anyone can call themselves a musician and put up a myspace site), but there are also sites like Dmusic, CD Baby that are allowing Musicians to sell their music, offer free downloads, and promote themselves without having to "sell their souls" to a music label.

As I said, the market is slowly turning, and there still is a lot of crap out there, but there is also some real gems to be found. It is also fun to explore new music without having to worry about DRM or breaking copyright (no piracy required). This market still has a long way to go, but it is doing better than Tower Records is right now (just declared bankruptcy again).

Well, not many labels directly, but CD Baby (the friendliest little record store on the internet (as well as one of the largest ones), selling only albums by independent artists), has a deal with iTunes (and a whole list of other online stores) for handling the submission to them for their artists. It costs $35 for a one-time setup fee (for distribution to all those other stores; I wouldn't be surprised if that's pretty much cost-price for the distribution), and then they take a 9% cut of whatever the online store pays. So 91% of the ~50-80% that the online store pays goes directly to the artist.

slashdot reported on it when the deal with iTunes started. If you want to know more, look up some of the posts made by Derek Sivers, who runs CD Baby and posts frequently here on slashdot.

I assume you use CD Baby, since it says 91% in their Sell your CD section. It's a good deal. A friend's band uses them.

Of course, it's really only about 50% or so after Apple's cut, but still good.

...but I use CDBaby.com to sell my music on iTunes. I actually make more money per song than I would per song per physical CD sold, which is how it should be. I also get paid per play on subscription services. And while that's just a fraction of a cent, it does tend to add up if someone likes a CD and listens to it often.

I chalk this one up to major labels just being bloated and greedy.

1. Market yourself in the local music scene.
2. Get local gigs and save that money towards studio time.
3. Studios can be rented for as little as $100/hr and you can even have them supply you with an Engineer.
4. Get a website (myspace, etc...) and market your to your fan base.
5. Get your audio masters and submit them to lulu or CD Baby.
6. Submit your audio to radio stations, satellite stations and even cable TV networks for air play.

I know I've oversimplified the process, but it can work. I have several friends who are doing this exact thing. One friend of mine started the band Serpent Underground. They are self produced have weekly radio play on XM, have had Cable spots on Playboy and are competing in MTV2's On The Rise contest for MTV Play.

My point is, you can eliminate the middle man and you can bypass the RIAA.

My take on the whole RIAA situation is that it is the equivalent of seeing a black lab crap on your lawn, subpoenaing the records of all the black lab owners in your neighborhood from the city, sending all the owners a settlement offer to pay $100 for your cleanup costs of all the poop on your lawn in the last year(when you can't prove how much you actually paid for the cleanup), If they don't remit payment then you sue for $100 for each incident even though you still can't prove you ever paid.

The RIAA bases their initial lawsuits on IP addresses. Everybody on slashdot knows that is completely unreliable proof of who was actually using the computer that was sharing the song or file. Once they know who had that song according to the unreliable IP address, they go after the owner of the ISP account. They CANNOT PROVE that anybody ever DOWNLOADED that song and they CANNOT PROVE that the song you possessed was not legally yours or another file named the same and they CANNOT PROVE that the IP address was your computer or that the files were shared of any users' free will without infringing on your 14th amendment rights and the CANNOT PROVE that they've actually lost any money (i.e. damages).

The problem is that most judges, attorneys and defendants involved do not understand the technology. So they give in and pay. It is extortion and it is borderline illegal. Only a class action suit will bring this to an end.

(I appologize for the double post, That's what I get for not paying attention)