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If California is .com, Portland is .org in every way.

From the INCREDIBLY cool FreeGeek ("helping the needy get nerdy") - to the active Portland Linux/Unix Group to the Portland Ruby Brigade that put together the FOSCON mentioned in the OP - Portland has some great geeky stuff going on.

A few months back, I ran the exact same Craigslist help-wanted ad, looking for a great programmer for a well-paying job, in both Portland and Los Angeles Craigslist at the same time. (The job could be done from either Portland or Los Angeles.) The Portland ad was answered by about 30 brilliant programmers, all working on interesting things and seemed to be doing it for love more than money. The Los Angeles ad was answered by a couple clueless numnuts. I love Los Angeles for other reasons, but this was a telling experience.

No sales tax. Great public transportation. More hybrid cars per-capita than anywhere. Kennedy School. Free wireless broadband covers the entire city. A damn good place to live and work. And not a single tourist attraction.

If you mean artists who are on indie labels, there's a ton of that on iTMS -- in fact, most of the content is from non-RIAA labels.

If you mean unsigned artists, they're on iTMS as well. It's similar to the fact that many good record stores carry CDs by unsigned artists, but the majority of their inventory is from labels. If you're an unsigned musician you generally have to go through a third party to get your stuff sold on the big online stores. I believe CDBaby used to provide an encoding service for unsigned musicians, but in perusing their site, it's not apparent that they still do.

At any rate, the reseller sets the final price, and Apple won't sell your track at less than $0.99 because they don't need to. You probably heard all the noise when they sold their 50 millionth track a few weeks back. There's just not enough elasticity between $0.99 or $0.89 or $0.79 to make me want to buy more music, and I'd bet their research has shown that there's lots of other folks out there like me.

eMusic is great and all, but another option to support artists better is to still buy stuff from ITMS - but try and look for stuff on labels that are more fair to the artist.

Here I am thinking in particular of CDBaby. They are a great label with very fair terms for artists, and you can find thier stuff on ITMS, like The Haight Gang.

One thing I wish ITMS would offer is the ability to search by label (or even see the label a song comes from!).

I don't have an SO you insensitive clod! :-) Seriously though, the computer can be a good way out of **AA homogenous mind-control hell. It's all a matter of how you use it. The tools are so good/cheap/ubiquitous for musicians that amateur/independent music exists to shame anything the RIAA has available. No need for RIAA assistance or studios, just grab a copy of Logic Pro and do your thing. The computer allows me to check the RIAA Radar, to ensure I buy no music from baby-litigators. Finding good free/independent music is easier with collaborative filtering. I like iRate myself, but other collaborative ranking systems are available that make the process of separating wheat from chaff easier. The "music industry" as it was 10 years ago is now useless to me. I'd rather find tunes on iRate and paypal the cash for a CD at the band's website or through CDBaby.

As for video, the process seems to be in it's infancy. Already though, shows are popping up on P2P that were canned by the major networks but attracted a fanbase online. It won't be long before producers decide to release on P2P first and approach networks later.

His name was Jogeir Liljedahl. He has a CD available here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jogeir with an actual guitar playing Guitar Slinger. I like this disc. It has several tracks that started as MODs on his Amiga.

It's called http://cdbaby.com/

Enjoy !

On iTunes it only costs $8.91. Many other albums on there are also sub $10.

It worked well for me. (though the tracks arrived out of order, so sorting by Date Added gets them jumbled up.)

I'm against renting music myself, and I'm kinda burned out on mainstream music since our local Hear Music closed. Since then, I've stuck to CDBaby primarily, and iTunes mostly for singles. (ah, the eighties..)

I've got an album on CDBaby - it's (plug) The Sound and the Furry, and I can attest that artists set the prices of their albums there. In general terms, CDBaby takes about $4 per full-length album, and generally they're about $1-2 each to produce in not-huge quantities, so I wouldn't expect prices to ever be below $8, and $10 seems reasonable to me.

-David Barak

I thought your site was cool, but then I saw Vanilla Ice (here). Dude, weak. You went from "cool site" to "making god kill kittens and baby jesus cry." I haven't felt this dirty since The Crying Game.

"...and monopolizing all avenues of distribution, making sure that any artist who wants to have their music heard must go through one of the record labels."

Of which there are thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands. Some are big and huge and are members of the RIAA. Some are small and independent yet still belong to the RIAA. Some are small and independent and cool and don't belong to the RIAA. Some, like Magnatune, are virtual. Some, like CDBaby, specialize in getting your stuff onto the legit download sites even if you're not signed to a traditional label. There's a ton of non-RIAA and unsigned music on the Apple iTunes Music Store.

It's your music... do what you want. If you want to get the potential of mammoth exposure and sales, in exchange for a loss of control and a much smaller portion of the selling price of your music, sign a recording contract with a big label. If you want a little more control and a bigger share of the profits, but with less of a budget, go with one of the cool indie labels. If you just want a little assistance but want to do most of the promotion yourself, try Magnatune or CD Baby. If you don't think the service that any of them provide is worth it, and you're lucky enough to have the means to record, produce, and promote your work yourself, then more power to you.

The fact is that in the record industry, just as in the software industry or a thousand other industries, nobody's going to give you a million bucks to do with as you please in creating and promoting your work, without wanting something back. Is this unfair? You bet. Can it make it tough? Of course. But this is not a "monopoly."

Mr. Worf (buy the album! It's great!)
The Comforts of Home

Mr. Worf (buy the album! It's great!)
The Comforts of Home

DRM is the future, you can't stop it. Your children in 20 years won't be able to buy plain old music CDs anymore because the RIAA won't release it unsecured like that.

Then, much like now, the RIAA won't get a dime of my money. There are a lot of extremely talented independent artists out there. Try CD Baby.

IMHO there's nothing wrong if the creator of the work can set whatever license he wants - including (at his option) insane prices and unbreakable DRM.

Fine, but their right to tell me what to do with their work ends as soon as I hand over the cash. Then it's my copy, and they can kiss my ass. I'm not sharing it, but I'm sure as hell gonna do whatever else I want with it, including finding a way around any DRM.

What the consumer should do is react to this by ignoring the obscenely licensed crap the RIAA puts out and starts supporting their local bands that'll let you listen to music without the threats and lawsuits.

You can also go to places like CD Baby and Strange Fortune that specialize in indepentdent music. I was gonna also link one of my old favorite trance artists, Minister, but he's got an obnoxiously loud audio loop on his front page. :-/ If you look him up, turn the speakers/headphones waaay down before the page finishes loading.

So if I keep a spare drive of the same type as my main storage media that has plenty clean/authorized content... write a little extra to it to make "recent content" then swap it with the drive that had all my mp3's... how exactly would you know? This assumes also of course that swap/etc are also stored on said drive and not the root drive?

Of course, unless you are really doing something you know is wrong and/or are really paranoid - why bother? I'm sure as heck not going to invest in a spare 160GB drive to spare in mild event that the MPAA/RIAA or anyone else come a'knockin. I'd rather spend my money other places

I like Audio Lunchbox for a la carte, subscription-free, DRM-free music downloads, complete with artwork.

You can also get entire indy CDs (actual physical media - remember that?) from CD Baby. CD Baby artists may not get the same airplay, but there's a lot of good stuff on there. I highly recommend that you try browsing by flavor.

Fixed CDBaby link is here. Sorry 'bout that!

There are quite a few successful online-only artists these days. First off, sell your CD's through CDbaby.com. They take a very small cut of your profits and will put your stuff on iTunes for you (you also get a larger cut than the standard artist there as well via cdbaby). Next, put free downloads on your site. The only way people will know if they like your music or not is if they can hear it, right? Now...I would suggest putting them in a slightly over-compressed format. Meaning, it's a high enough quality to hear your music properly, but not quite high enough for them to be satisfied with just that file. I'd suggest either a 96kbit MP3 or Q0(~64k) Ogg Vorbis file... Now they can proceed to buy your CD or download a high quality file from something like Mindawn.com. The next step, and it's the hardest one...is to get advertising of some sort. You can have the best music and the best site, but if no one knows about it, no one will ever see/hear it. This is the music industry's trump card currently, but it is possible. My current favorite band, Celldweller, does all their stuff themselves, sells primarily online, and are doing pretty well (they had a song featured in the Spiderman 2 trailers last year). They even have a small distribution deal to get their stuff in mainstream stores like Best Buy and whatnot. Good luck!

I'm currently considering being my own label and selling CD's through CD Baby. My experience with them has been positive so far.

You obviously don't understand the argument. This isn't about whether or not DRM is 'okay'. DRM is fundamentally flawed. It is impossible. You might as well be asking for reverse friction to propel your car instead of those evil fossil fuels.

Has it ever occurred to you that if you consider the entire industry and its artists creatively bankrupt that you don't have to patronize it in any way, shape, or form?

Yep. See iRate and CD Baby for more information.

After all, it's the commercial tripe that's on the iTunes Music Store anyway, right?

Wrong again. Meet Brad. Brad is an unsigned, open source musician. All his files are available for free download at his website. Not just the tunes, but source files too. You are encouraged by Brad to download his music and source to remix and share with friends in just about any fashion possible. Not only does Brad lack the RIAA's bad attitude, but Brad has talent. Brad's tunes are also available on iTunes for $0.99 each.

If it's so horrible, it seems that you shouldn't have any problems not using the iTunes Music Store, eh?

You'd rather downloaders go "steal" music rather than pay for the song? You aren't defending artists. You're defending RIAA policy.

I'm not saying all filesharers aren't hypocrits (altough I could come op with a lot of examples of hypocricy that are 'worse', in my opinion), so I don't disagree with your post as such.

One point I would like to make is this. The music industry is a monopoly. The top 5 labels own 80% of the music that you hear. Why? Because they control the distribution as well. There are a bazillion small labels. Sign with them and never get heard, doesn't matter how good you are. Sign with a major and get heard by millions, no matter how much you suck (insert obvious examples here). Remember that most new and upcoming bands are a couple of young unexperienced guys with guitars who would do anything for a bit of recognition. They only go Wilco after years, if ever.

There are also labels that sell cd's for less. http://www.cdbaby.com/ The general public doesn't know about their existence because they don't get distributed like the majors do.

It's a classic example of a monopoly.

Required reading: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html The Problem With Music by Steve Albini
(Steve Albini is an independent and corporate rock record producer most widely known for having produced Nirvana's "In Utero")

Aren't record companies in business to make money? It's well and good for us to tell the record companies that they should instead be concentrating more on unprofitable bands, but it is they, not we, who are responsible to their employees.
As much as this is true, it's a sad fact for music. You rightfully conclude that the music industry (yes, industry) is all about money and not about music. With this statement, you validate their monopoly and say that it is their right to control what we hear, what we see, what we do. Although it is wrong to break the law and the law is being broken, I cannot agree with these practices.

Your argument pretty much justifies the things that I have been saying for years. Most bands don't make hardly any money off CD sales in the first place, they make their money through live shows and merch. So, I never understood why all these big bands/performers complained so much about us downloading their songs...

But, then you also have to take into consideration musicians who only produce studio work and never play live. There are quite a few people, especially in electronica, who only record music and never set foot on a stage.

I say a mixture is in order. Release all your songs online in a lossy format, with a slightly sub par bitrate, and allow them to be distributed freely (96k mp3 or even better, a Q0(~64k) Ogg). Then charge people for the "full quality" CDs or Lossless (FLAC,etc) files. I wouldn't mind paying $1 for each song if I got to download a "decent", full length version of it for free and try it out for a while first. And of course, no DRM encumbered formats would be used ;) I always "try before I buy" with my music these days. If you make good music, you have nothing to lose. If you are a no talent, one hit wonder pop star, then you don't deserve to be in the music industry in the first place. My current favorite band, Celldweller, has no record label and distributes the majority of their music from the web.

CD Baby has a great Digital Distribution system that is very musician friendly. I worked with a group, Pig Farmers of the Apocalypse, who have done this very thing. For us to publish it cost $35 to set up with CD Baby, $20 for a UPC label, and the costs of manufacturing disks. CD Baby sends it to most of the online distribution companies by clicking a link, and giving a couple more sentances worth of information. Of the $.10 and $.55 that would usually go to artist and label, CD Baby calls it $.65 and takes 9%, only 7 cents, per track. If your music is good, and it sounds like it is, than you really shouldn't overlook this opportunity. Any income to help pay for the costs involved with the album are welcome, plus they can help get the word out to a larger audience as well. If you market yourself well, this can end up being a way better system than using a major label.

CD Baby has a great Digital Distribution system that is very musician friendly. I worked with a group, Pig Farmers of the Apocalypse, who have done this very thing. For us to publish it cost $35 to set up with CD Baby, $20 for a UPC label, and the costs of manufacturing disks. CD Baby sends it to most of the online distribution companies by clicking a link, and giving a couple more sentances worth of information. Of the $.10 and $.55 that would usually go to artist and label, CD Baby calls it $.65 and takes 9%, only 7 cents, per track. If your music is good, and it sounds like it is, than you really shouldn't overlook this opportunity. Any income to help pay for the costs involved with the album are welcome, plus they can help get the word out to a larger audience as well. If you market yourself well, this can end up being a way better system than using a major label.

Actually, no.

Musicians make deals and voluntarily sign contracts with the record labels.

Futhermore, musicians have plenty of alternatives to going the label route, such as self-publishing via services like CD Baby, etc.

A Russian site that sells music and pays the musicians nothing is far worse than crappy deals with record labels.

CD Baby has similarly cheap prices, depending on what you buy. You have to buy at least 3 albums, but once you do that, the price drops to $5/album (plus shipping). Obviously, not as cheap when you factor in shipping, but still pretty good if you're into independent artists. I find that this plus yourmusic.com is a cheap way to build a CD collection.

The hamsters' music sounds something like the Team Metlay album Ballistic. Especially a song like Trajectory

This is a great album by the way..."Aqua Regia" is one of the best uses of 30 minutes worth of CD media that I've ever heard. Team Metlay is the Internet's first supergroup...a bunch of e-musicians get together every year for a few weeks, and write, record, and produce an album, and have been since 1994 or so. Pretty eclectic stuff, for people that like the Mind/Body industrial compilations or MuseNet -- perfect for the Slashdot crowd, I figure.

The hamsters' music sounds something like the Team Metlay album Ballistic. Especially a song like Trajectory

This is a great album by the way..."Aqua Regia" is one of the best uses of 30 minutes worth of CD media that I've ever heard. Team Metlay is the Internet's first supergroup...a bunch of e-musicians get together every year for a few weeks, and write, record, and produce an album, and have been since 1994 or so. Pretty eclectic stuff, for people that like the Mind/Body industrial compilations or MuseNet -- perfect for the Slashdot crowd, I figure.

I *know* there are online services to get that stuff, because my husband buys them all the time. Try CD Baby for some domestic stuff, and Ghostland or Progressiveworld to get more info.

Trust me, we've gotten plenty of CDs from online groups; you just have to hunt them down and wrestle them to the ground.

"Signing with the RIAA or MPAA is not a 'choice' in the way you're probably thinking of it. They have the entire industry by the nuts. They have distribution and radio/television advertising tied up tighter than you can possibly imagine. Their grip on clubs and tours gets tighter every day. Even with the advent of the Internet, there is still no way around them."

This is an interesting observation and a refreshing counterpart to the usual claim that the magical power of the Internet is going to put the recording industry out of business any day now.

"Anything that challenges them gets sued (whether the complaint is legitimate or not), then gets bought at a bargain basement price, and finally is euthanized or utterly declawed (Select examples: mp3.com, Napster, and now LokiTorrent)"

Napster and LokiTorrent aren't the best examples. More appropriate examples are Magnatune, CDBaby, and LegalTorrents. These three enterprises show that you can compete with the established record companies in a way that does not involve piracy of copyrighted works.

"The RIAA is making slaves out of artists, not the "Pirates". The RIAA was making slaves out of artists long before the first bootleg tape was ever made. Please understand, Pirates (capital P) and the RIAA are at war, and it's not about getting music without paying for it. At its core it mirrors the "free software" movement in many ways."

I disagree. Pirating music does not embody the spirit of the free software movement any more than pirating Photoshop does. The free software movement is all about giving away your work willingly.

A much, much better analog to the free software movement is the vast legion of musicians who have eschewed going the traditional label route and have instead attempted to use the Internet to get their music directly to the consumers. Like the brave souls at the forefront of the free software movement, these folks must keep their day jobs, must be willing to work late nights, and work without the net of financial security that is possible by working with a larger entity, whether it's a huge software company or a huge record label.

www.cdbaby.com

If you feel the RIAA has done you injustice, support Independent Bands/Artist or buy music that is only in DRM Free formats like Ogg Vorbis, etc from sites like these: http://ind-music.com/ or http://www.cdbaby.com/ As long as people buy it and don't pay attention to what the software or music files are doing, they (RIAA) will keep doing what they do.

Like hell you say. I only buy non-RIAA affiliated music from CD Baby, or download free tracks with iRate. You know what? I like this stuff a lot better than most of the crap that passes for music on the advertising clogged radio and TV stations.

Want some? Here's a small sample:

• Metal - Celldweller (CD Baby)
• Electronic/Industrial - More Machine Than Man (CD Baby)
• Acoustic - Okkervil ("Westfall" via iRate)
• Rap - Poverty ("I'm Hatin'" via iRate)
• New Age - Circle of Mansions ("Sky Machine" and "Number Nine" via iRate though I cannot google a link for either ATM. Try "Left Me." That's good too)
• Electronic - Atari Baby ("Share your love (Aspect Mix)" via iRate)
• Easy Listening - Sheryl Clapton ("Magic Door" via iRate)
• Hard Rock/Metal - Dazychain ("Too Much God" via iRate)
• Industrial - Firewerk (CD Baby)
• Punk Rock - Limit ("Mr. DJ" via iRate)

The same will happen to the MPAA. It's only a matter of time. The MPAA fears bandwidth and BitTorrent. They say it's because of piracy. Either they are really stupid, or they think we are. They just don't like competition.

Like hell you say. I only buy non-RIAA affiliated music from CD Baby, or download free tracks with iRate. You know what? I like this stuff a lot better than most of the crap that passes for music on the advertising clogged radio and TV stations.

Want some? Here's a small sample:

• Metal - Celldweller (CD Baby)
• Electronic/Industrial - More Machine Than Man (CD Baby)
• Acoustic - Okkervil ("Westfall" via iRate)
• Rap - Poverty ("I'm Hatin'" via iRate)
• New Age - Circle of Mansions ("Sky Machine" and "Number Nine" via iRate though I cannot google a link for either ATM. Try "Left Me." That's good too)
• Electronic - Atari Baby ("Share your love (Aspect Mix)" via iRate)
• Easy Listening - Sheryl Clapton ("Magic Door" via iRate)
• Hard Rock/Metal - Dazychain ("Too Much God" via iRate)
• Industrial - Firewerk (CD Baby)
• Punk Rock - Limit ("Mr. DJ" via iRate)

The same will happen to the MPAA. It's only a matter of time. The MPAA fears bandwidth and BitTorrent. They say it's because of piracy. Either they are really stupid, or they think we are. They just don't like competition.

Seriously! Where do you think the DVD-CCA gets their funding? From that LOTR box set you had to have! If you think what happened to Jon was wrong, stop throwing money at the machine that made it happen. Is hollywood's entertainment worth the society it creates?

This is why I've never purchased a DVD with CCS or region coding, and don't plan to ever do so. (They're a great way to store data.) If you can't kick the DVD habit, at least give a few bucks to the EFF each time you indulge.

How about the RIAA? Find some indie bands who don't feed the monster. I've discovered that small concerts (under 500 people are so) are not only more fun than 10,000 idiots in a sports arena, but the small venues generally have better acoustics.

Maybe your niece really wants the latest teen pop CD for x-mas. Fine, but bundle it with some weird cool music. You never know what might happen.

As for Clear Channel, what radio stations do you listen to? They sell your ear-time. Stop buying from their advertisers if you can help it. Discover the kickass late-night program on the local station.

As for the BSA and Microsoft, I'm sure we all understand the basics here, but seriously consider it. Are you supporting the noncommercial projects you value? Have your contributions this year outweighed that XP license your uncle bought?

But then... digital distribution started last year with Apple iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. All of these companies REQUIRED that the encoded file (AAC, WMA, etc) come from the master WAV file. Ack! Screwed! 9 months of ripping down the drain!

So... we finally realized what I was kicking myself for not realizing in the first place - and exactly what the story post mentions: hard drive storage is cheap. labor is expensive. rip the CD *once*, lossless, and NEVER have to rip it again. We wiped all our useless MP3 drives and started again: ripping all 78,000 CDs to FLAC format. Since it's a perfect digital copy of the master audio fles, and supports metadata tags, too, it's the perfect archiving format.

VERY easy to just script-up a bulk converter. http://perl.pattern.net/transcode is a great Perl solution. I posted my audio-converter scripts here, which include the use of SOX to make 30-second audio clips (since we needed that for work).

To all those here saying "MP3 is fine!" - you're being short sighted. In a few years there will be a newer better codec, and all your old MP3s will look as bad to your ears as your old 320x240 JPGs from 1995 look now. Go lossless. (FLAC, WAV, etc) - your future self will thank you.

Cool thing: in a regular record deal or distribution deal, musicians only make $1-$2 per CD, if they ever get paid by their label. When selling through CD Baby, musicians make $6-$12 per CD, and get paid weekly.

I haven't bought a CD in nearly a year, even as a gift for someone else. And no, I don't download music from P2P sources; as a musician myself, I simply can't do it. So how do I get new music? I usually get whatever the band or musician gives away legally from their website, and occasionally freebies from live shows. Good examples are Velvet Chain, Daughter Darling, and Collide. When I have the money, I'll buy CDs directly from the artists, either from their website or from CD Baby. Since most of the new stuff I listen to (including all of the above) are independent musicians, they get most of the money from their CD sales.

Granted, if all you like is Pop/Top40 music (bleh), then this scenario won't work for you as the RIAA would skin them alive for giving any music away. But then, most Top40 acts get plenty of money while they are in their prime, so they actually want you to buy their CD from your local retail outlet.

Alternatives exist to the labels which compose the the RIAA.

I'm going back to CD Baby, where I can wait for this blow over.

Actually, most people do *NOT* have a problem ripping off someone who is honest and decent ... organizations like the RIAA fit into this category quite nicely so people have no problem with piracy.

What part of price fixing and suing children makes the RIAA either honest or decent? As a result of their honest, decent behavior I have personally decided to *never* give them another dime. I get music free, legally or I buy from non-RIAA bands. I actually spend a lot more on music now than I ever did before the file-sharing lawsuits, but obviously, they will not be benefiting from it :-)

Despite the silly name, CDBaby rocks balls. I've ordered a number of amazing indie discs from them (The Big Creak's "Just Left Town" comes to mind) and they've always been inexpensive, friendly, and rediculously fast. I mean like ordered on Monday and the disc arrived on Tuesday type stuff. They're a model for all other music distributors.

iTMS doesn't generally deal with individuals because, well, there are just too many of them. If you're an Indie artist, you can sign up for iTMS via CD Baby (see link here), and if you're an Indie label a la Dischord, you can approach Apple and sign up directly without an intermediary.

As for browsing for non-RIAA music (if that's your thing), besides checking out the RIAA Radar, you can also start here. If anyone besides the Baby is doing those, replies are helpful.

This is bad because the copyright weasel will undoubtably be teaching our children that eternal copyrights held by corporate "individuals" and heirs of dead creative geniuses are a good thing. When, in fact, I would rather my children learn that a much more intelligent and socially responsible copyright term was originally put into law, before media conglomerates started buying corrupt politicians.

I would also rather have my children learn that it is much better to make sure that the artists are directly compensated, by supporting local and independant musicians, rather than lining the pockects of corrupt business monopolies.

• Find any tall beige-box case. ($150)
• Find 9 good 250g Serial ATA drives. ($100 each = $900)
• Get an 8-port serial ATA hardware RAID controller like these ($300)
• Get a good 400-500W power supply ($200)
• Any motherboard and CPU will do ($200)
• Spend a few extra bucks on gigabit ethernet ($50)

Rip all your CDs as FLAC so that (1) you never have to rip them again (it's lossless), but (2) it's half the size of saving WAV files

At least that's what we've done with our 68,000 CDs we have here.

• Find any tall beige-box case. ($150)
• Find 9 good 250g Serial ATA drives. ($100 each = $900)
• Get an 8-port serial ATA hardware RAID controller like these ($300)
• Get a good 400-500W power supply ($200)
• Any motherboard and CPU will do ($200)
• Spend a few extra bucks on gigabit ethernet ($50)

Rip all your CDs as FLAC so that (1) you never have to rip them again (it's lossless), but (2) it's half the size of saving WAV files

At least that's what we've done with our 68,000 CDs we have here.

Any unsigned artist can sell his/her music however he likes. See CD Baby for but one example of indie music available for sale and purchase.

The problem is that Apple refuses to deal directly with the artists. They'll only deal with *large* publishers.

wrong.

If you go directly to CDBaby, you can hear about a minute of each song instead of 30 seconds. Also, independant artists get a larger cut than those who signed up with the Big Labels, so you don't need to feel guilty about handing money over to the Evil Empire.

Upon some research, it looks like CDbaby inked the deal last year. Wish I'd known!