Slashdot Mirror
Internet-based Publishing for Independent Bands?
Cultural Sublimation asks: "My brother's band is putting the finishing touches on their new album. They have published via a small independent label before, but this time they are considering going for Internet-based distribution. They are quite open to fresh ideas: they are even thinking of releasing the album into P2P networks and using the tip-jar model for revenue. It would
also be nice to give people the possibility of
buying online the physical CD with the artwork.
They are therefore looking for a publisher which:
a) won't take away their rights; b) allows for
distribution via P2P (perhaps even providing
a tracker for torrents); c) facilitates the
tip-jar model; and c) allows physical CDs to
be shipped on demand. What are fellow Slashdot
readers opinion on this?"
Offer full CD or near CD quality MP3 downloads of your best singles, demos, etc.
If you do this, I'd recommend using Bittorrent because a small band could get beaten up by bandwidth charges should they get popular.
Not ure of CD quality because a new band probably havn't produced to studio style before, reducing the concept of 'quality' to 'raw skill'; 128kbps (or even substantially less) should be fine as more general studio production issues dominate kbps above this.