So if I recorded a couple of songs and wanted to post them on the Internet for people to buy, where could I do that? I realize there are some mp3.com type places where you can post free downloads, but is there someplace where non-signed bands can put out music to sell like iTunes or buymusic.com? It’d be nice to be able to post our songs and then link them from our website rather than hoping people will buy a full CD worth of music and wait a week to get it.

You might want to look into The Orchard. Supposedly if you send them 5 copies of your CD and a one-time fee of $49 per release, they'll make your music available over multiple DMS systems, including iTunes.

Hey, that's cool! I wonder if it works as advertised . . .

I wonder if it works as advertised . . .

Yeah, I don't know. If it does then it's gotta be one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. I'm not clear, though, on what they consider a "release." Do you suppose release=track or release=CD? My first assumption was track, but they only talk in terms of CD's. If a release is a CD, then that sure is one helluva deal!

I'm not clear, though, on what they consider a "release."

I don't know. I'm guessing that release=CD because they consider a "label" anyone with 5 or more releases. If a release=track they'd have an awful lot of "lables" to deal with! The exception to this is if they expect people to deal in singles, but that doesn't make sense with all of the "CD" talk. Still, I might email them and find out.

The reason I asked this is that I was trying to decide if I should set up my own site to do this, but if I can send people over to iTunes or even amazon.com to buy a CD, that's a better deal than trying to maintain my own, non-publicized website, even if the profit would be far less.

You might want to look into The Orchard

CDBaby is another option. They do regular CD sales as well as iTunes as I understand it. I have no real experience with them, though.

-Mike

Well I checked these guys out. CDBaby definitely has a better rep than the Orchard, which has some bad press associated with it. Also, reading through some of their obligations makes me a little suspicious (like the part where you have to sell a certain amount to get paid, an amount they've apparently raised without warning in the past). The thing about CDBaby is it doesn't do exactly what I want, as I'm more interested in digital audio than physical CDs. I already have (hopefully) an online distributor for our CDs lined up; it's the digital I'm interested in. I know CDBaby apparently gets your stuff on iTunes, but it's clearly not their focus.

So after talking this over with my friend a bit, I think we might give our own site a shot. We have the tools and the server space already available, so now all we have to do is see if we can strike some deals with independent bands to sell their music. The upshot of all this is we can do it with non DRM protected formats, and even make FLAC versions available for those who don't want sub-par versions of the songs. I've already run this by one indie band I know and the guy was pretty interested, especially since it'd enable them to record and sell songs one at a time rather than waiting to put together a whole album. We’ll start more as a service to bands so they have an outlet to sell music. My hope would be that bands will promote the site for us by posting links from their sites telling people where they can instantly buy/hear their tunes.

Anyway, still brainstorming at this point, but it feels like there is a need here that is not getting met and I need to decide if the reason is because it isn't a viable business or if no ones tried it the right way yet. . .