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There are companies (CD Baby comes to mind) who'll put your indie-band music up on the iTunes store, and take only a 9% cut of the 66-67% wedge of the pie that the "label" gets.

If I'm doing my math right, that means the 99 cents for a song are split up 33 cents for Apple, 6-7 cents for CD Baby, and 59-60 cents for the artist.

That's obviously about a 10% better deal than Magnatunes is offering. And honestly, if I were trying to sell my music, I'd really rather do so at the store that's accounting for a huge percentage of all legal downloads than at some site that I only ever see mentioned in /. comments and the like, touting its great (well, not so great, after all) financial treatment of artists. :)

There are companies (CD Baby comes to mind) who'll put your indie-band music up on the iTunes store, and take only a 9% cut of the 66-67% wedge of the pie that the "label" gets.

If I'm doing my math right, that means the 99 cents for a song are split up 33 cents for Apple, 6-7 cents for CD Baby, and 59-60 cents for the artist.

That's obviously about a 10% better deal than Magnatunes is offering. And honestly, if I were trying to sell my music, I'd really rather do so at the store that's accounting for a huge percentage of all legal downloads than at some site that I only ever see mentioned in /. comments and the like, touting its great (well, not so great, after all) financial treatment of artists. :)

"Everytime you plunk your change down for iTunes, CDs, DVDs, whatever, remember that a portion of that goes not only to supporting multimedia conglomerates that control everything it also goes to supporting DRM, lawsuits against others, and lavish parties where people enjoy laughing at you for buying their shitty music."

Since the first two Slashdot stories about CD Baby getting independent music into Apple iTunes (see iTunes Indie Meeting Notes and Sell Your Music on iTunes Music Store) - things are starting to standardize.

It's actually really interesting watching this happen, from a tech point of view. These big companies appear to have their stuff together from the outside, but I've had quite a few conversations where the techies at the big giant download music service are asking us, Uh... what do you recommend? How are the other companies doing it? Others say things like, This is how Universal Music sent us their catalog - so can you just imitate that? And voila! Watching new standards form.

I get the feeling that immediately after the initial announcement of Apple iTunes, and their 1-million downloads, lots of companies felt they just had to jump in as fast as possible, without any time to think out the long-term strategy. That's part of the reason why they're so incompatible. No time to communicate with others. (And plenty of paranoia about revealing their plans, I'm sure.) Things are settling and standardizing now, though.

Anyway, as you can tell I'm a very open guy, and this summer I'm going to take the time to do some detailed technical write-ups of all the things that go on behind the scenes (including our cool 40-terabyte digital audio warehouse). It's pretty interesting stuff.

(For details of what we do, see the CD Baby Digital Distribution page. Tell any good artists you know who want to get their music onto these services!)

--
Derek Sivers, CD Baby

Not only could this easily be definied as a cover, which requires no payment of royalties

Think about it. What about all those lyrics sites that got sued and/or shut down? All they did was print the lyrics to songs. Illegally. Why? Because lyrics are the copyrighted property of the publisher (often, the artist). The 10-year-old in the commercial went on TV and recited the lyrics to a song, without permission. What's the difference?

Covers are completely legal, which is what this would be.

You just have to notify the copyright holder and pay less than 10 cents per download (not sure what it is for commercial useage.)

Now, INAL but I have been looking into music copyright recently.

-Tim

well what if I said that you don't heve to get explicit permission to record a cover.

what you have to do is to pay the proper fees so that the composer/lyrics get their money for that(when the song gets played).

cd baby has something here titled "How to Legally Sell Downloads of Cover Songs". "If you record a cover version of a song, (meaning your performance of a song that has been released in the U.S. with consent of the copyright owner), you are entitled by law to release your recording commercially, and the owner of the copyright to the song cannot prevent you from doing so.

The Copyright Act provides for what is called a "Compulsory License", which means that if you follow the steps set forth by statute, you can distribute your recording of that song on a CD or over the internet. "

so while you are licensing the song, the copyright owner has to license it.

If the artist so requests, CDBaby will also shop the CD to download services like Rhapsody, BuyMusic, Emusic, the new Napster, AOL's MusicNet, and MusicMatch (no iTunes yet). The cool part is that CDBaby only takes 5% of what the download services pay them, passing on the rest, which is about 60 cents per track, to the artist, and when they do that they forward the detailed accounting report to the artist.

This is great, CDBaby has an impeccable track record of honesty and fair dealing with the artists, and 60 cents is more per track than what the vast majority of signed artists get per entire CD. But the potential for accounting shenanigans perpetrated by the download services themselves is high. They could simply lie, or fail to correct some error in their accounting software, and the artist would be none the wiser. CDBaby already helps independant artists by harnessing the collective bargaining power of all its members, but the additional pressure and oversight of a union like Mudda could help keep the pressure on.

If the artist so requests, CDBaby will also shop the CD to download services like Rhapsody, BuyMusic, Emusic, the new Napster, AOL's MusicNet, and MusicMatch (no iTunes yet). The cool part is that CDBaby only takes 5% of what the download services pay them, passing on the rest, which is about 60 cents per track, to the artist, and when they do that they forward the detailed accounting report to the artist.

This is great, CDBaby has an impeccable track record of honesty and fair dealing with the artists, and 60 cents is more per track than what the vast majority of signed artists get per entire CD. But the potential for accounting shenanigans perpetrated by the download services themselves is high. They could simply lie, or fail to correct some error in their accounting software, and the artist would be none the wiser. CDBaby already helps independant artists by harnessing the collective bargaining power of all its members, but the additional pressure and oversight of a union like Mudda could help keep the pressure on.

If the artist so requests, CDBaby will also shop the CD to download services like Rhapsody, BuyMusic, Emusic, the new Napster, AOL's MusicNet, and MusicMatch (no iTunes yet). The cool part is that CDBaby only takes 5% of what the download services pay them, passing on the rest, which is about 60 cents per track, to the artist, and when they do that they forward the detailed accounting report to the artist.

This is great, CDBaby has an impeccable track record of honesty and fair dealing with the artists, and 60 cents is more per track than what the vast majority of signed artists get per entire CD. But the potential for accounting shenanigans perpetrated by the download services themselves is high. They could simply lie, or fail to correct some error in their accounting software, and the artist would be none the wiser. CDBaby already helps independant artists by harnessing the collective bargaining power of all its members, but the additional pressure and oversight of a union like Mudda could help keep the pressure on.

With the major labels for instance, the artist might get something like ten cents per song sold. On the other end of the spectrum, an artist selling their music through CDBaby gets something around 60 cents per song sold.

iTunes is lame. It will matter when ANYONE can sell music through it, and artists can bypass record companies altogether. As it is, it is just a shill for the record companies and the RIAA.

An artist can get their music into the iTMS by getting a label to represent them and act as an intermediary with Apple. Any of the labels in the iTMS can submit music. So for an artist to get into the iTMS, they just need to get on CD Baby. It's easy.

You put forward a lot of questions here... but I'll try my best to address them...

1. iTunes does not deal with artists directly, therefore if you sell through the iTunes store you need a label.

2. However, this label does NOT need to be a member of the RIAA. Independent labels/distributers (e.g. CD Baby) have deals with iTunes and the other online music stores.

3. Some of these distributors have the same contract with every artist and sell through a variety of channels (mail order, iTMS, Napster, MusicMatch, etc.). For instance, CD Baby has this deal where the artist gets 91% of the money the music store pays out.

SO, it is very possible to have a distributor that has no relationship with the RIAA, but does have a relationship with ALL the major online music stores.

Now, say what you will about Apple, they definitely have faults, but I certainly applaud Steve & Co. for coming up with this model and making sure that the indie record labels and distributors can strike deals with the exact same terms as the RIAA.

Although I have much more respect for the guy who runs CD Baby.

Mmmmmaybe. For copyrighted works, the publisher does not want us in the equation because all we do is erode their markets. Commercially, it would be hard to unseat iTunes which the RIAA loves because it's still filled with gravy (unless you're cdbaby). I would consider having a public archive ala mp3.com for free or specially-cleared works.

However, Cringely kinda had the right idea with Snapster... imagine if a public library could obtain clearance to circulate songs on owned albums individually...and patrons could make playlists of songs they want to check out...and the system could schedule so that only a single patron was listening to a certain track at a time..heh.

Great idea, vonFinkelstien, thanks.

...except that it's largely a crock of you-know-what. :)

The one valid point I've seen on that site is that iTMS is helping the major record labels stay alive, and without it, the labels might have a harder time of doing so. Lots of hypothetical there, and considering that iTMS's 20 million songs sold is still nothing more than a tiny blip in the overall annual U.S. music market of some billions of songs, it warrants skepticism.

As far as the artists not getting much money out of the deal... exactly how is that any worse than what they already had? The labels were screwing them before, and they're contractually obligated to the labels, so it's not like they can just sell direct to iTMS (or anyone else) and make an "end run" around the labels. If artists sign contracts that suck, that may be their fault, it may be the label's fault, but it's certainly not Apple's or anyone else's fault.

And of course it almost completely ignores indie labels that are now getting people's music on iTMS. People who go through those labels are taking home as much as 55-60% of that 99 cents a song. That's a pretty damn good cut of the money.

Basically, it strikes me as the same sort of shrill our minds are made up, don't bother us with mitigating facts rant as that put forth by those guys who decided that just because their iPod battery wore out, all iPod batteries must suck, and it was perfectly okay to go commit acts of vandalism as a result. :)

I wouldn't go so far to say that "free always wins." If there is an artist I like, I *want* to support them, to the point of driving 8+ hours to see them.

And while I'm there, I buy stuff just to buy it, like an extra copy of the CD I already have, and a shirt. In this case, it's pop/rock, but hey, that's one of the kinds of music that I like. Some of the artists that I like are signed to majors, some aren't - the reality of it is that even if they are signed to a major, they likely aren't making enough money to make it really worth their while, unless they're overpromoted for their talent.

I'm not naive enough to say that those unsigned artists that even have time to tour will be totally supported by thing like t-shirt sales - that's silly, and to the point of an overused cliche.

At risk of being flamed badly, I'll even admit to subscribing the "new" Napster, though I do so with no misunderstanding about what I'm "buying," which is pretty much a crappy sampling experience. The iTunes store is somewhat better, but still leaves things to be desired. Perhaps in time, the music industry, as it sits today, will get a clue. If not, the solution HAS to be music without industry.

There are other options out there. For electronic music creators, ElectronicScene.com is a good site. Ampcast is another good general music site that doesn't get nearly the pub that MP3.com does. Amazon has a spot for hosting MP3s. Plus, CD Baby is setting up a digital distribution channel that will let unsigned artists sell tracks on iTunes.

There are more, and there will be at least one big site to emerge out of this, because nature abhors a vacuum. A little Googling will help. Plus, let's not forget that C|Net is talking about relaunching "artist services." I don't think this domain will be just a portal for iPod & iRiver reviews in the long run.

. . .but you totally missed the point.

CDBaby doesn't have its own "download service" competing with iTMS/MusicMatch/etc. They serve as an electronic distributer. You tell CDBaby "here is my CD. Please place it on iTMS and MusicMatch." CDBaby replies, "we'd love to do that. we hope your band does well. You will be paid 91% of what Apple / MusicMatch pays us for downloads of your songs." CDBaby has deals already worked out with the download services letting them rip/upload music to the stores.

Here's more info about their service.

Have you looked into CDBaby for electronic distribution?

Since Apple opened the iTunes Music Store to indie labels as well, much better terms have been available. At least one indie label put their terms up on the web publicly (http://www.cdbaby.net/dd).

Given the numbers that came out when the iTunes Music Store launched, you pay 99 cents for a song; Apple gets about 30-35 cents for running the service, the rest goes to the label. So CD Baby (as an example) should be getting 64-69 cents per song sold. They're taking a 9% cut, so that leaves well over 50 cents per song sold that goes to the artist.

As people were saying when the indies first got on board, it's only a matter of time before somebody gets seriously rich as an indie artist this way... ;)

All they offer is a website to listen to the songs and then buy them. If I need that service, I'll use CD Baby, where I don't sign the rights to my music away. And boy do they have many artists already!.

Additionaly, CD Baby takes a flat amount of $4 (CDs) or 9% (iTunes music store), all without signing my rights away. I think I know which one I'm choosing :-)

All they offer is a website to listen to the songs and then buy them. If I need that service, I'll use CD Baby, where I don't sign the rights to my music away. And boy do they have many artists already!.

Additionaly, CD Baby takes a flat amount of $4 (CDs) or 9% (iTunes music store), all without signing my rights away. I think I know which one I'm choosing :-)

All they offer is a website to listen to the songs and then buy them. If I need that service, I'll use CD Baby, where I don't sign the rights to my music away. And boy do they have many artists already!.

Additionaly, CD Baby takes a flat amount of $4 (CDs) or 9% (iTunes music store), all without signing my rights away. I think I know which one I'm choosing :-)

• It misstates the relationship of artists to iTunes. You do NOT have to be an RIAA-member published artist to get your music onto iTunes, and there's at least one company, CD Baby, that makes this a piece of cake with the bulk of the .99 going to the artist. iTunes insists on a middleman, it doesn't insist that Hilary Rosen be that "man".
• It suggests that artists are ripped off by this system but somehow are not by Kazaa and their ilk. How? Not explained. Just repeated, ad-nausium, like some kind of Hanzo-San.
• It suggests that making artists maintain the hardware and infrastructure for distributing music would, in some way, be preferable to Apple doing it and charging their 30c. Again, no explanation.
• Ultimately the agenda is revealed in the same paragraph - apparently 99c per song is too high! It should be 50c! And the artists should foot the bill (as above)

CDBaby only takes a 9% cut.

"Forcing" bands to sign with these types of services would be a good thing for artists and their music. Why does this idea escape so many? The members of the RIAA are simply getting rich due to their stranglehold, nothing more. We simply aim to end it, not hurt the music or the artist. In fact, the result would be to help the latter.

Get rid of them, and the want for music still remains, it doesn't "disappear". So, how will we get it? From places like CDBaby and iTunes Music Store, and by forcing CD stores to carry a wider variety of small label bands due to newly created demand. With the members of the RIAA gone, their forced radio play will undoubtedly disappear too. I would love to hear some Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, or Sonic Youth on the radio. Sure beats the crap out of what they're playing now, that's for fucking sure, for nothing more than variety alone. I swear, if I hear another 3.5 minutes of formulated crap I'm going to... nevermind.

No, not buying an RIAA member CD helps music and the artist in my opinion.

" how can you do a legal end around against that without getting on a soapbox and demanding that your constituency is heard? "

By 'legal end-run' I mean an end-run that is legal, not a legal battle. CD Baby is an excellent example of a means for artists to sell their music to listeners without selling their souls (and most of their profits) to the RIAA.

anyone actually click the link? you have to have a $35 cdbaby account before you can do the $40 electronic distribution deal. read the last bullet on this page if you don't believe me. just thought someone should mention it.

You know, some bands do this themselves.. And they DO break out of college circuits. Why, the crazy little girls even offer some of their music for free! They must be cray-zee, since the only way to make money is through a middleman. I guess that's why they earn less than an artist signed on a large label. Oh, wait. They earn more . (Per CD sold, since they are their own promotor, record label and publisher). But they must suck, right? It must be ultra commercial music? Well, you can always download it and make up your own mind... At least the critics love them.

If your CD is not in CD Baby already, our original $35 CD Baby set up still applies. That $35 is for the warehousing and work to have it on cdbaby.com. This $40 is for the additional work for years of digital distribution.

Authorization.

Subject to the terms of this Agreement, RIGHTS HOLDER hereby appoints CD BABY as RIGHTS HOLDER's exclusive authorized representative for the sale and other distribution of Digital Masters. Accordingly, RIGHTS HOLDER hereby grants an exclusive right to CD BABY, during the Term, to:

reproduce and convert RIGHTS HOLDER Content delivered by RIGHTS HOLDER into Digital Masters;

perform and make thirty (30) second clips of the RIGHTS HOLDER Content available by streaming ("Clips") to promote the sale and distribution of applicable Digital Masters;

promote, sell, distribute, and electronically fulfill and deliver Digital Masters, as individual tracks or entire albums, and associated metadata to purchasers who may use such Digital Masters in accordance with usage rules similar to those set forth in Exhibit A;

(and so on)

Just 5.

-j

Yeah, they do have to "sign a contract".

From the link:

there can't be more than one distributor bringing the same music to the same store so we have to be the exclusive distributor of your digital music to these services (only) during the contract

There's a $35 fee to set up a CD with CDBaby to begin with, and if you want this, there's $40 more to process, store, and then send to any digital music provider that they sign up with in the future.

If dhovis figures are correct, from straight up downloads through iTunes, an artist will have to sell 128 tracks to break even on the fees ($75/$0.59). Once they do that, however, everything they sell is pure gravy. Since they're all indie artists, there's no recouping left to be done (though they'll probably have a few expenses of their own to pay.)

If you read through their little presentation, it's actually $40 per album plus a one-time fee of $35 to set up a cdbaby account. That's still not horribly bad.

My only worry with this is that as far as I can tell, CDBABY isn't *required* to do anything.. they have to attempt to get you on these services but if the services all reject you, you still have spent $40.

Moreover, it *appears* from the contract that if you want out-- like, in the unlikely event if iTunes Music Store doesn't accept you through cdbaby, but you later find a way you can get on iTMS not through CDBaby, but you are bound by CDBaby to go through them-- you can do so without penalty, but not until either three and a half years from the start of the agreement or until CDBaby wants to change the terms of your contract, whichever comes first.. that's much better than it could be, of course, the contract isn't limitless and you can get out freely after that block of time, but it decreases the ability to do this kind of thing just as a what-the-heck kind of thing.

Here's the thing I can't figure out from the contract. If you sign up with them, do they have exclusive rights to ALL online distribution, or only online distribution through the services that CDBaby works with such as iTMS? In essence, if I signed up with them, would I still be able to distribute mp3s on my own website of the material signed over to them? The little slide-show seems to imply this would be allowed, but 8ai and 8aiii in the contract seem to say that CDBaby has been given an exclusive right to this as well.

Anyway, definitely interesting. I'd like to see if there's any other way to get onto iTMS or other services first as a complete independent, but I will definitely keep these CDBaby people in mind..

I'm sure they could. But what about other online music stores? According to CDBaby's site, they also distribute to listen.com, emusic.com Rhapsody, and others.

CDBaby also sells physical CDs,. For a one-time $35 charge (and 5 copies of your album), they'll warehouse and sell your album. They charge customers whatever you want to charge for your album, keeping $4 per sale. (One thing the /. article didn't mention is that the $40 charge for distribution to download sites is in addition to the $35 charge for them to sell your physical CD.)

Also CDBaby's 9% is 9% of what they get from the web sites. So if Apple charges 99 cents and keeps 40 cents, the remaining 59 cents goes to CDBaby. They take 9% of that (5.31 cents) and pay you the remaining 53.69 cents. Which is still a far cry better than going through a major label, where the artist will get 12 cents and the label owns the copyright on the song.

Overall, their service looks like a great deal. Combined with the fact that studio equipment isn't nearly as expensive as it once was, any band can now record their own material, burn their own CDs, and sell them on-line without any oppressive contracts and for very little money up-front.

I'm sure they could. But what about other online music stores? According to CDBaby's site, they also distribute to listen.com, emusic.com Rhapsody, and others.

CDBaby also sells physical CDs,. For a one-time $35 charge (and 5 copies of your album), they'll warehouse and sell your album. They charge customers whatever you want to charge for your album, keeping $4 per sale. (One thing the /. article didn't mention is that the $40 charge for distribution to download sites is in addition to the $35 charge for them to sell your physical CD.)

Also CDBaby's 9% is 9% of what they get from the web sites. So if Apple charges 99 cents and keeps 40 cents, the remaining 59 cents goes to CDBaby. They take 9% of that (5.31 cents) and pay you the remaining 53.69 cents. Which is still a far cry better than going through a major label, where the artist will get 12 cents and the label owns the copyright on the song.

Overall, their service looks like a great deal. Combined with the fact that studio equipment isn't nearly as expensive as it once was, any band can now record their own material, burn their own CDs, and sell them on-line without any oppressive contracts and for very little money up-front.

Nice troll, and very wrong.

For one, Apple *will not* deal with the band themselves. Read anything put out by them and they make that explicitly clear.

What CD Baby is doing is acting like a record label on behalf of the 38,000+ indie artists who sell their music through CD Baby, even though CD Baby has no exclusive right to the CDs sold on that site.

Instead of going through a point-by-point refutation of your garbage, why not actually read a little to see what's happening.

Cheers!

SwiftCD does CD on demand. Just upload the artwork, and send them a copy of your audio CD or CD-R. They handle fulfillment including the merchant credit card side, just link your site to their order page. If you want to see how this works in practice, check the URL in the sig. The store section including band merchandise is totally outsourced.

No charge up front, but the tradeoff for using them is that for something with the look/feel of a commercial CD, you're going to have to charge what major labels do to even make a few bucks per CD.

A high price, but I think a fair one given what you don't have to do to sell CDs. The tradeoff is one-off custom production and paying for them to collect the money, make the CD, package it, and send it as opposed to doing it yourself and paying for and storing a CD inventory.

An alternative if you either had your CDs pressed at a commercial vendor or are capable of making high-quality CD-Rs including packaging is to look into CDbaby, that means you can offer CDs at much lower prices, but the tradeoff is the obvious one, you have to make the CDs yourself.

"Yeah, the music companies get their blood money, but I'm guessing that none of it reaches the artists."

iTunes Music Store is available to very small labels and even artists via CD Baby. There have also been some reports that artists get a MUCH higher percentage on the downloaded music from Apple than from CDs. E-Musics market model is a bit fuzzy and quite frankly, I'm fascinated they haven't gone under yet.

Regardless, this is nothing more than an excuse to break copyright law, because you don't like how artists are treated. If you feel civil disobedience is the way to go on this issue, more power to you. Make no mistake though, you are breaking the law when you distribute via some p2p network music you don't control the copyright to. Don't be surprised if you get sued. I won't feel sorry for you.

Apple iTunes is paying the label 65 cents per download, (as reported many places). Of that we can pass almost all of it to the artist, since we're not a record label, and have no up-front expenses.

You can see my notes on Apple's meeting with independent record labels here (pt 1) and here (pt 2).

From the article: * Every album needs to have a UPC Barcode!

Buuuuut... CD Baby doesn't require a barcode and doesn't get one for you so I see some problems with CD Baby being able to supply Apple with all the required stuff.

Huh? have you actually looked at their site? CD Baby is authorized to issue barcodes, and will do so. They will give anyone selling a CD on CDBaby a barcode for only $20

I'm sure CD Baby would be happy to carry Pearl Jam's music.

Take a look at this then.

Talks about some of the points of the talk.

Last I heard, CDBaby takes $4 per CD. Of course, they handle warehousing and shipping for you, but then you have to pay to send the CDs to them. For most sales, they also add the standard handling fees that the musician won't see.

So, you could sell your CD for $14 + $2.25 shipping and make $10, or you could sell your CD for $14 + $2.25 and make $15+ before shipping costs. Or, you could sell your CD for $10 + $2 shipping, get about $10 and maybe sell more because of the cheaper price.

As for marketing, you're absolutely right. Labels also take care of weeding the wheat from the chaff (in their opinion), something that indie sales and promotion sites generally don't do (Think of MP3.com). I gather that most musicians want the first problem solved w/o consideration for the second--something that just isn't economically feasible. So for now, you settle for word-of-mouth and hope that sites like CDBaby and FatChuck's Music help you extend the loudness of the mouth.

You stated:
They even run OpenBSD and Apache

The web site states:
All my sites are on dedicated server (Cobalt RaQ) with 10 gigs of space running Redhat Linux.

And Netcraft says:
Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.8.11 OpenSSL/0.9.6g PHP/4.2.3 on FreeBSD

Regardless, it is a very good site and definately worth checking out and spending some time on..

I'd *LOVE* to be given some suggestions of good music that is legal to download and try out.

First off, check out CDBaby, an online record store that sells CDs by independent artists (which covers those burning CDRs in their bedroom, and those signed to tiny non-RIAA labels). You might want to check out their About Us page to read about their philosophy, and their artists terms page to see just how much of an improvement they are over mainstream distribution routes. In addition, the majority of artists on CDBaby have streaming RealAudio samples to listen to, plus a lot of them have free MP3s on their websites.

As for specific artists... well, I obviously don't know what sort of stuff you're into, but here's a selection of what I've been listening to recently:

• You're Pretty, MP3s at MP3s.com (play Something Real)
• Jennifer Terran (kookier than Tori Amos)
• Molly Zenobia (only a few MP3s on-site)
• Anger Of The Lamb, MP3s at IUMA.com (play Beautiful Disease)
• Violent Work Of Art (play The Worst Is Yet To Come)

If none of that tickles your fancy, CDBaby have a great search feature whereby you can enter the name of a well-known artist and get a list of recommendations, so whether you're a fan of Radiohead or (heaven forbid) Britney Spears, it shouldn't be too long until you've stumbled onto something you like.

Yeah, I totally agree... CDBaby rock. I placed my first order (You're Pretty, Molly Zenobia and Jennifer Terran) with them a few weeks back, and I couldn't be happier with the service. It took just five days for international delivery (to the UK) - I've had orders from UK companies that have taken longer than that, even when what I ordered was in stock!

There's definitely no going back for me - I'm slowly going completely independent. To be honest, the only loss I'm going to suffer from not buying BMG's music is Patti Smith - and since I already have all her best (early) albums, I can live with that. I'd be more upset if I had to give up Radiohead or R.E.M., but fortunately that's not happened yet... * touch wood *

The best thing about CDBaby is that they're totally open about the terms under which they sell artist's CDs. It's nice to know that the artist is getting more than mere pennies when I purchase one of their albums.

High-quality (175-line screen) four-color printing (4/1) printing

Direct on-disc printing

Injection-molded CDs manufactured to stringent quality specifications (These are NOT CDrs/CD-one offs)

Jewel boxes and shrink-wrap

Inclusion of a track from your CD on one of our OASIS SAMPLER CDs, with free distribution to the vast majority of radio stations in the US that specialize in your musical genre

National distribution directly through Amazon.com--the biggest retailer on the Web--as well as through cdstreet and the beloved indie store CD Baby

Free barcode if desired

Ten Retail-ready display boxes

Naturally, the prices go up if you want a nicer insert with more room for lyrics and band photos, and they go down if you buy more CDs. No. I'm not affiliated with Oasis. Our band may put out a disc of our own soon, so we've been looking into duplication options, and they are the company that we like the best so far. If you want to look at some other good options for indie bands, check out the list of duplicators recommended by CD Baby. Some of them have even lower prices than Oasis. (but not as many free perks)

If you decided to use Oasis, you may want to talk to our rep, Alex (Alexandra) Vacek - she's been real helpful with all our odd questions.

Courtney Love's good discussion of how that financing works can be found all over, in places like this:

http://www.cdbaby.net/articles/courtney_love.html

It looks like even when you get a hit, you might not make money.

And for those of you who may have forgotten about this... here's a great little speech made by Courtney Love about the RIAA.

Interesting to reflect back at what was said two years ago, and how it still continues to be true.

-Alex

www.cdbaby.com has a bunch of cool CD's (with audio sampls) that appear to be put out directly by the artists. I haven't bought anything from them yet, but check out their policies, and you'll see that there are definitely artists without labels on their site.

If you're trying to boycott the RIAA you should definitely check them out.

--Robert