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This doesn't just mean not buying from the RIAA member labels.

That just gives them an excuse to buy even worse laws than the DMCA and "legalized corporate hacking."

Spend every dollar you've been spending on RIAA label music on independent musicians.

You can find some independent musicians, including some with downloadable tracks at CDBaby.

I work with an independent musician with both CDs for sale and downloadable tracks, check out http://www.eliangedeon.com.

Lots of other non-RIAA music on the Web. Google is your friend. No matter what you like, there's probably somebody who makes it who hasn't sold his or her ass to the RIAA.

Every dollar you spend on the good guys is another nail in the RIAA coffin. When music sales go up except for the RIAA labels, the multimationals that own major labels and the artists who work for them will look for a way to bail out.

When this is true, it's over for the major labels. They won't even exist in name, investor groups will be buying artist contracts and catalogues. But not the management who turned multibillion dollar companies into hundred million dollar companies, and not the "tainted" brand names. And make no mistake, a brand name that makes people less likely to want to buy is of negative value.

CD Baby rocks. My little label has a few titles for sale there (like the new Plink record -- go buy one!), and they've been nothing but great. They provide the best information of any web store I know of; they're very quick to pay us; and they're friendly. Their site design is a little ugly but hey, it's distinctive -- and the site is fast.

Instead, buy from independent non-RIAA musicians and labels. You'll have to look around on the Web to find those, but you should be able to find one to match your tastes no matter what they are. If record sales go up, but the RIAA labels go even deeper into red-ink, it'll be obvious that piracy is not the problem, no more excuses to make bad laws. It really won't take a lot of this to blow the labels right out of the water.

They're losing money anyway. They blame piracy. If they lose money a hell of a lot faster, what good is a "name brand" when customers see the name and automatically buy elsewhere? The label owners will see a bunch of "tainted brands" losing them money. The mulitnationals will unload fast to investors who will only want the catalogs and artist catalogues. Who will want to buy a CEO who managed to turn a $5 billion company into a $500M company?

CDBaby has a quite a few. Some with downloadable music.

Or check my sig to hear another one. We've got downloadable MP3s, too.

If you aren't sure whether an artist is RIAA or not, check RIAA Radar search to see if the artist is listed.

Every dollar spent on non-RIAA label music is another nail in the coffin of the RIAA and its record company members.

They have really super responsive customer service, and shipped very quickly. The site may look a bit plain, but look beyond the lack of Photoshop skills and you will find a lot of great music - plus they have a really nice means of finding new music by various categories that is hand-picked.

For anyone that likes soundtrack kind of music, take a look at The Haight Gang, a soundtrack without a movie but very well done and with a lot of great musical flavors woven in.

No offence intended, I really respect what those/you guys are doing :)

It's a great site. Artists get a url like this:
http://www.cdbaby.com/marthastrouble.

It's so easy to stick that on a post card. It also saves the band the hassles of having to go out and get a merchant account to accept credit cards. Sure, they take a cut of the sale to cover costs, but it's not too bad.

Yeah, but waht if it's a girl to begin with?

I've never bought from them personally, but they sound like a bunch of people that really love music...very small record-shop-ish. (See the bonus free CD for returning customers.)
A friend of mine who got something from them a while ago also thought their e-mail confirmation was absolutely hilarious:

"Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Thursday, April 17th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year". We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM"

If everyone started downloading legal music instead, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs from indie bands, and seeing their shows, instead of enriching the major labels every time you buy a Britney or New Kids CD. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads are not copyright violations because the artists give you permission to download them.

Probably the best known site for downloading MP3s is of course MP3.com . See especially their genre index . Click the link. You will be quite astounded at how many genres there are.

Unfortunately the website usability of MP3.com is atrocious, and their streaming audio seems to be buggy - I can't get it to work in either Explorer or Mozilla. To get an MP3 file to download to your hard drive, you have to register, which I'm sure will result in merciless spamming. May I suggest registering with a throwaway email address from spamgourmet ?

The Open Directory Project has Bands and Artists and Styles indices. Not all the artists offer downloads, but the site says they list 48,000 artists and I imagine many of them offer downloads.

There are better sites for hosting MP3s than MP3.com. Some of them allow you to buy the band's CD from the same page as the MP3 download. Among them are The Internet Underground Music Archives, CDBaby, Epitonic.com, Lulu, SoundClick, Matador Records and insound .

Monotonik provides BitTorrents with zip files containing 60 to 100 MP3s apiece available here.

If you prefer the higher quality, patent-free Ogg Vorbis files you can find several download sites here . Ogg Vorbis players are available for many platforms - WinAmp will play them on Windows, and I understand iTunes on Mac OS X supports Ogg now. There are open source Linux ogg players and encoders, even an open source fixed-point decoders for embedded applications where the CPU doesn't have floating point hardware.

There are also peer-to-peer applications for distributing legal music. See Furthur Network and konspire[2b] .

Unfortunately, musicians are often not very good website designers, so poor usability is a significant obstacle to getting music directly from artists' websites. If you're a musician, and you'd like to know how you can improve your website so more people will download your music, please read my article If Indie Musicians Wanted Their Music Heard....

Finally, there is the problem of finding the music that's actually worth listening to. The labels do serve the (somewhat) legitimate purpose of picking out the good from the bad. But we can do that ourselves with legal downloads by using collaborative filtering, for example by downloading our music with iRATE, which you'll find at

People, the answer is simple! VOTE WITH YOUR DOLLAR! CD-Baby.com has a load of GOOD music, and not a dime of your money goes to the RIAA.

This is the ONLY way that the RIAA will understand that we're not going to take their shit anymore.

And start buying CDs at CD Baby!

In addition to outfits like cdbaby.com, there are a few other gatherings of indie artists such as dmusic.com, which features music by a hideous amount of artists.

I've been sticking primarily to the "electronica" section of dmusic, and I've been pleasantly suprised with the quality of many of the artists and their work. (Arthen, mux, dithyramb, skender, groovetronic, to name a few.) Go check em out... While the files aren't CD quality, it still sounds good at 192+kbps. :)

We all do it; we listen to .mp3s of a certain artist, and if there's only one song that's worth a damn, we scrap all the others, and most of the time the good one as well, since it will likely follow so many others into the hole where the tired one-hit-wonders are always abandoned, relegated to the Hey, Remember The 80's?-style radio shows.

If the project has a few good songs on it, or if it's one of those rare gems that is actually composed (sorry) entirely of good music, we buy the disc so:

a. the artist makes a little money, and
b. we can ensure the best quality .mp3 files for our personal stash.

IANARS (rock star), but with what insight I have gained about the industry has led me to always seek out the best source from the band's perspective to get my own copy of the CD. If they've got a website, I order it there. Granted, used CDs are cheaper, but the artist never sees a dime of that resale money. Of course, on the shinier side of that coin, if the RIAA gets any of it, it's a lot smaller cut if any at all (usually none, but not always).

And sorry, but this topic is just too close to perfect for my resistance to "insert shameless plug;"
you can hear one of my bands here.
;)

zedmelon

We all do it; we listen to .mp3s of a certain artist, and if there's only one song that's worth a damn, we scrap all the others, and most of the time the good one as well, since it will likely follow so many others into the hole where the tired one-hit-wonders are always abandoned, relegated to the Hey, Remember The 80's?-style radio shows.

If the project has a few good songs on it, or if it's one of those rare gems that is actually composed (sorry) entirely of good music, we buy the disc so:

a. the artist makes a little money, and
b. we can ensure the best quality .mp3 files for our personal stash.

IANARS (rock star), but with what insight I have gained about the industry has led me to always seek out the best source from the band's perspective to get my own copy of the CD. If they've got a website, I order it there. Granted, used CDs are cheaper, but the artist never sees a dime of that resale money. Of course, on the shinier side of that coin, if the RIAA gets any of it, it's a lot smaller cut if any at all (usually none, but not always).

And sorry, but this topic is just too close to perfect for my resistance to "insert shameless plug;"
you can hear one of my bands here.
;)

zedmelon

At CD Baby we work directly with 38,000 musicians (NO record labels) that are selling their music direct to the world.

Just like we should all support the independent programming projects when possible, you should support independent music so that these big record labels will have to reinvent themselves or die.

Hurt the record labels, not the musicians themselves. Do a musician a favor. Bypass the labels. Buy direct . (My little store alone has paid over $3 million directly to musicians in the last couple years.)

(See our flavor galleries for some real creative browsing.)

At CD Baby we work directly with 38,000 musicians (NO record labels) that are selling their music direct to the world.

Just like we should all support the independent programming projects when possible, you should support independent music so that these big record labels will have to reinvent themselves or die.

Hurt the record labels, not the musicians themselves. Do a musician a favor. Bypass the labels. Buy direct . (My little store alone has paid over $3 million directly to musicians in the last couple years.)

(See our flavor galleries for some real creative browsing.)

At CD Baby we work directly with 38,000 musicians (NO record labels) that are selling their music direct to the world.

Just like we should all support the independent programming projects when possible, you should support independent music so that these big record labels will have to reinvent themselves or die.

Hurt the record labels, not the musicians themselves. Do a musician a favor. Bypass the labels. Buy direct . (My little store alone has paid over $3 million directly to musicians in the last couple years.)

(See our flavor galleries for some real creative browsing.)

They're really not just garage bands anymore. Go browse your favorite style of music over at CD Baby, and check out their editor's picks. Really amazing stuff there, and all of your money goes directly to the MUSICIAN not to the very record labels who this lawsuit was against!

They're really not just garage bands anymore. Go browse your favorite style of music over at CD Baby, and check out their editor's picks. Really amazing stuff there, and all of your money goes directly to the MUSICIAN not to the very record labels who this lawsuit was against!

And speaking of RIAA, I still get those "join BMG" mailings, where I can get like 14 CDs for a dollar, and even then I can't find more than 4 I would take at those prices. And most of those are Classical Music compilations.

Corporate music is a wasteland, and therefore never gets any of my money. Thankfully there are still oases where one can find music worth buying. The RIAA should look at what those vendors are doing right, rather than at what their customers are doing wrong.

The combined companies that make up the RIAA have released fewer new tiles. See the BusinessWeek article and this article by George Ziemann of MacWizards Music

If I understand basic accounting correctly, then releasing 20% fewer new titles should reduce expenses somwhat (admittedly not by quite 20%), so suffering only a 7% drop in sales should look like an increase in profits, unless you are expiriencing losses other than in sales.

I have learned of much of the new music I listen to through CDBaby.com and I'm sure that the RIAA companies are not very happy about losing customers to artists that don't care much for the typical record company contract.

It seems the companies are once again not being quite honest about thier losses, the causes, and, it seems, thier motives.

> The only thing I can do is stop buying music

Wrong. You can donate to the EFF. You can purchase music or otherwise support artists on CD Baby, an "online record store that sells CDs by independent musicians" (not distributors). There's pleny of things you can do to thwart the efforts of the RIAA mafia.

Or, you could just go to CDBaby. ;)

Triv

I used Fat Chuck's Music (which was featured here on /. a few weeks ago) for the ordering pages

I'm not sure that was the best choice. You may want to consider using a much better established site (e.g. one with over 36,000 artists) and a proven track record for sales; i.e. one that has already given $3 million dollars of sales profit to indie bands. They also make it very easy to find indie artists who sound like your favorite bands. That saves having to wade through piles and piles of stuff that's questionable quality.

FWIW, I went to the Fat Chuck's site after it was linked here, and there was nothing there to listen to. I haven't been back there since. In contrast, I've been to CD Baby several times since then and have found several great bands. (And no, I'm not just plugging CDBaby because they are /. users who run a successful business without using any microsoft products. I was visiting CDBaby long before I knew about that)

I used Fat Chuck's Music (which was featured here on /. a few weeks ago) for the ordering pages

I'm not sure that was the best choice. You may want to consider using a much better established site (e.g. one with over 36,000 artists) and a proven track record for sales; i.e. one that has already given $3 million dollars of sales profit to indie bands. They also make it very easy to find indie artists who sound like your favorite bands. That saves having to wade through piles and piles of stuff that's questionable quality.

FWIW, I went to the Fat Chuck's site after it was linked here, and there was nothing there to listen to. I haven't been back there since. In contrast, I've been to CD Baby several times since then and have found several great bands. (And no, I'm not just plugging CDBaby because they are /. users who run a successful business without using any microsoft products. I was visiting CDBaby long before I knew about that)

Much like a dying empire, the RIAA is struggling to remain relevant.

Hopefully this will steer more people to buy music from the artists themselves. CD Baby has been a good source in my experience.

www.cdbaby.com

All independent artists. The RIAA gets NOTHING!

I use them all the time and their service is great.

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

I found cdbaby.com a couple years ago, and have bought about 1/2 of my CDs from them since then. I've found several local great bands this way, and several of my favorite bands. (Though nothing will beat Rush and Pink Floyd for me)

Portal - intelligent, philisophical anguish, working on their second album. Like Tool-Anima / NIN (Canada)

Scarlet Life - great trip hop. Like Portishead, but more cutting (Chicago)

and Pelican City, Seroya, Vanessa Handrick, Moon Theory, Civilization, Alex Tronic, Molly Zenobia, Laya Fisher...

And I get the satisfaction knowing that 50% to 80% of the CD price goes directly to the artist.

They make great presents too. :)

If they didn't make it USA-only. I give them an A for effort though.

Instead, I'll use CD Baby and get songs for approximately the same price, but at CD-quality, and from non-RIAA artists.

Why not just go buy independent music from CD Baby. There is some great music there, you can sample songs before you buy, and payment goes directly to the artists. Plus, the prices are actually reasonable. This a great business model, and their customer service is increadible. Check it out.

While Fat Chuck's is subscription based (you pay a $60 annual fee), CD Baby charges $4 per CD sold. So Fat Chuck's is a better deal if you know you are going to sell more than 15 discs (probably a fair bet).

The other difference I see is that Fat Chuck's only processes the transactions, they don't ship the CDs. CD Baby is a real on-line store and maintains inventory. When they start to run low on stock they send you an email. If they run out they won't sell your disc anymore (but they will issue "rain checks" if they are relatively certain they will be receiving more soon). Derek (CD Baby's president) is a great guy with a lot of music industry experience as well, and he puts out a lot of advice for aspiring artists.

Somehow I think I'd rather just pursue my own online transaction capability rather than go through Fat Chuck's.

This has already been done before. Go take a look (and listen) at cdbaby. They have over 34,000 artists, and a lot of them are pretty darn good. I buy most of my music there.

My brother-on-law sells on CD Baby and seems pleased. Not sure how they structure the deal, but the basic idea is to allow independent artists to get most of the money.

None of these sites solve the much larger problem of artist marketing, IMO. That's the one service that the record companies offer to the artists that no one else can get close to (in part because they lock competitors out of radio access, for example). There's room in the market for someone to do that, but they're going to have to find other means of getting to the customer other than radio (sites like Epitonic.com are a good step in that direction).

Check the prices at CD Baby for all genres. Maybe try Century Media if your genre happens to be metal (or a few related genres, but mostly metal).

Of course, if you're looking for something specific, then yeah, what you want might cost more.

• They give musicians a big cut of their sales
  
• they have awesome recommendations
  
• you can listen to 2 minutes from 4 tracks of the CD
  
• you can return the CD if you aren't happy with it!
  

But the real money-burner is promotion and distribution. Thousands, hundreds of thousands are spent on replication and distribution and marketing just so regular people (including the non net-savvy) can hear about new music.

This just got easier, by the way.

Surf to CD Baby.

Check it: Record album on your dime. Create CD's on your own dime. Pay CD Baby $35. Send them any number of your CD's. Sell them at whatever you want, CD Baby keeps $4 of each sale. CD Baby retains no rights to the music, the name, the distribution rights, or anything. All they are is hella-cheap internet distribution.

Case in point: You're a punk band, not interested in making a lot of money. You produce your CD on your own time, pay for the recording. Then you buy a truckload of cheap CD-R's and cases. You use your friend's 32X burner to burn 100 copies, and you print out the inside case label. Say it costs you $1.75 per CD. You send them in, charge $7, and you make $1.25 per CD, after costs.

That's cool. Distribution has always been the problem.

Or, there are other people, like Ian Mckay of the DC/mathrock scene and Dischord records. His solution is this: No written contracts. Just handshakes. He pays for the recording and mastering of your band's CD. He distributes the CD. All out of pocket. When it's done, he keeps all the proceeds of CD sales until the debt is paid off, and then the band and the label split it 50/50. He doesn't touch merchandise or touring profits. If a band ever gets into a disagreement with Ian and want to screw him, he hands them their master and tells them to get the fuck out, deal off, and they lose him as a contact and gain him as a bad reference.

So, I think slowly, music is changing. Attitudes are changing. The industry is changing. If I was to say one band has given me more joy over the course of my lifetime, I would have to say it was Less Than Jake. However, I'm seriously considering not purchasing LTJ's new album, because it's being put out by warner bros. records.

I honestly think, in the long run, there are too many people willing to eat what they're given by the RIAA, and pay $21.99 for a CD. But the number of people who know what major labels put bands through and aren't willing to put up with it is increasing all the time.

~Will

It was mentioned prominently last time we discussed the RIAA, so I'll throw it out again.

Support independent music you can listen to before you buy at cdbaby.com.

The great thing about CD Baby is that most artists there have at least four streamable songs (in mp3) per disc. You get to listen to the first two minutes of each song, and I don't have a problem with this (as opposed to the full song). Why? Because the indie artist doesn't make me feel like I'm the enemy for listening to their music before paying for it.

A feature that I also like from CD Baby is that you can search for indie artists that are similar to a national artist you know. That helps get you moving in a direction you're comfortable with.

For those of us who are trying to wean themselves off the RIAA but haven't yet kicked the habit, I recommend half.com (owned by Ebay). As an example, I recently got into Tori Amos. (Regardless of how you feel about her music, you do have to admit she's talented and original.) I picked up her latest CD a few months ago because it had 70 minutes of music and it cost me $10 new. I found myself really liking it, and willing to look at her other work.

Now, I could go to Best Buy and drop over $100 picking up the major discs of her backcatalog (5 discs plus a 2 CD-set), or I could go to half.com and get the same discs (albeit used) shipped to me for a grand total less than $30. As long as I can get a decent rip off the used discs, I don't care about their condition.

Between CD Baby and half.com, I really don't see myself buying many new discs from RIAA artists.

and to a lesser extent Metropolis Records
and Middle pillar

and labels like

Projekt Records - Who said napster was a good thing
Flaming Fish
UR-realist (Russian)

I can get a lot of good music and avoid the crap that the majors sell. I hope more artists begin to realize that majors are not the way to go to sell their music, your better off going independent and actually make money.

Very interesting idea - however, I can't find sample MP3 CDs on the website. Are you talking about this, or something else? If it's an actual CD, can you please post the name? I'd be willing to pay for a CD like this, to figure out which artists have some potential...

1. We carry 34,000 CDs from independent artists that are not affiliated with the RIAA. (Meaning: you can boycott the RIAA and still buy damn good music.)
2. We only work directly with the musicians, not distributors or labels. So we pay the artists every week. Unlike buying the majors, your money spent on CDs goes directly to the artists. We've paid over $3 million directly to musicians already.
3. We actually listened to every one of those 34,000 CDs before selling them, and can tell you which ones we highly recommend, here: http://www.cdbaby.com/picks. (It's somebody's full-time job, listening to 75 new albums a day, writing internal reviews, and linking up to other albums in the store, for the last 5 years.)
4. We've made some fun collections (flavors) of CDs: music for Long Drives / Road Trips, CDs to Have Sex To, albums for Academics and Musicologists, ones where someone is Naked on CD Cover, and more.
5. If you enter the name of your favorite famous artist, it'll show you the best new artists in that style. (Yes, it really works. It was built by ears not computers.)
6. Miss walking the aisles of a record store, looking at album covers? Check out the album art gallery .
7. You can listen to about 8 minutes of every single CD in the store, in 128k streaming MP3
8. We're ditching RealAudio for OGG soon. (Only reason we use RealAudio is that I started this site in 1997 when that's all there was!)
9. We never use any Microsoft products . Even the desktop computers in the office are FreeBSD running Opera.
10. The founder & president is the programmer is a Slashdot addict is me.

1. We carry 34,000 CDs from independent artists that are not affiliated with the RIAA. (Meaning: you can boycott the RIAA and still buy damn good music.)
2. We only work directly with the musicians, not distributors or labels. So we pay the artists every week. Unlike buying the majors, your money spent on CDs goes directly to the artists. We've paid over $3 million directly to musicians already.
3. We actually listened to every one of those 34,000 CDs before selling them, and can tell you which ones we highly recommend, here: http://www.cdbaby.com/picks. (It's somebody's full-time job, listening to 75 new albums a day, writing internal reviews, and linking up to other albums in the store, for the last 5 years.)
4. We've made some fun collections (flavors) of CDs: music for Long Drives / Road Trips, CDs to Have Sex To, albums for Academics and Musicologists, ones where someone is Naked on CD Cover, and more.
5. If you enter the name of your favorite famous artist, it'll show you the best new artists in that style. (Yes, it really works. It was built by ears not computers.)
6. Miss walking the aisles of a record store, looking at album covers? Check out the album art gallery .
7. You can listen to about 8 minutes of every single CD in the store, in 128k streaming MP3
8. We're ditching RealAudio for OGG soon. (Only reason we use RealAudio is that I started this site in 1997 when that's all there was!)
9. We never use any Microsoft products . Even the desktop computers in the office are FreeBSD running Opera.
10. The founder & president is the programmer is a Slashdot addict is me.