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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.

Let's keep this in mind, folks -- the music itself is not being destroyed, just this directory of it. The artists themselves maintain the rights to their creations, and if they want to upload them somewhere else, such as Ampcast or ElectronicScene.com, that is their right to do. Artists could also sell CDs on CD Baby or just upload their MP3s to their own web sites, provided it's cool with the ISP. Perhaps it won't be concentrated in one place like before, but life will go on.

Also, keep in mind that we don't know exactly what C|Net is going to do with the mp3.com domain yet. It may reboot the service and make it look similar to the pre-IPO days. That might not be such a terrible thing. That catalog had a lot of clutter.

As for Michael Robertson, I would ignore him. He was the one who said that MP3.com was a data company and not a music company. He's a lucky opportunist who doesn't really care about artist rights, and as a former artist on MP3.com, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

M$ has even less going for it than AOL did. That merger between a huge new media company and an old one failed. The old one keeps it's content locked up regardless of it's own new best interest. Time Warner STILL only squezes it's content out through the tightest of bungholes at $1.00/pop-tune. Apple makes no money from the music itself. Do you think that the same big dumb music companies will let M$ screw them around or have any of the money? Sooner or later, music companies are going to realize DRM is a huge boondogle and M$ will be hosed away. Kerfloop - there goes another billion or two of M$'s big fat bankroll.

Oh well, back to ripping the old LPs to ogg. Between my old music and new free music services, I don't need iTunes and other DRM gimped junk. Go get you some new music:

• Ampcast
• Electronic Scene
• the dude who sent me to the above

Then go spend the money you saved on a live concert or on an ablum by people who get paid by their publisher.

Yes, plenty.

Ampcast
IUMA
Electronicscene

Perhaps you could start with me and my band's free music.

electronicscene.com is a hosting site featuring 99.9% un-affiliated artists (to which reviews can be contributed) and musicbboard.com is its companion forum, where un-affiliated artists converse.

anyone's welcome to participate.

http://www.besonic.com/ does this

besonic is a site mostly populated by obscure artists, a heap of them electronic music makers, too. if you sign up for a listening account with them, they'll email you once a week (or something?) with tracks and artists they think you'll like based on how many tracks in different genres you've listened to. it's not a very intelligent system, but it kind of fits what is being asked about.

of course, sites like besonic (and the original big one, mp3.com) are dying off. the most promising new one is electronicscene.com. any electronic musician can sign up to have their tracks on electronicscene. there are ample links between genre pages and artist pages so that if you find one artist or genre you like, you can easily find another similar one... or lists of the artists and genres that influenced them. provided you like electronic music, it's an excellent place for finding new stuff.

The real independent music sites are now places like ampcast, javamusic, and electronicscene. The one I use is Ampcast, and my music page can be found by a sufficiently determined search next to my user #580 info :)

I'm by no means saying you're wrong to go shoveling through the music on mp3.com- I myself got some fantastic shakuhachi music there last year. Just know that mp3.com's probably one of the weakest indie sites out there (as well as being RIAA now). I'll give 'em this, however, the really specialized stuff is well represented.