GeekFun

My wife just picked up a a copy of the Wakefields CD on CDBaby, which operates out of Portland and sends out amusing confirmation e-mail, so it caught my eye when I saw a post by someone who works there while I was reading a thread on Slashdot about how iTunes Music Store was more a more popular source of music than most illegal file-swapping networks.

I was impressed both by how much business they are doing, and by how much they pass through to the artists.

iTunes More Popular Than Most P2P Sites

My company [cdbaby.net] is one of the main distributors of music to Apple iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.

I gotta admit that when we started doing digital distribution two years ago, I thought it would be just a small income stream for the musicians – some extra income, maybe $5k/month combined.

But our checks from Apple et al have been over $300,000 a month so far this year! And that’s just for our catalog of mostly-unknown all-independent music. (And hey for the record, 91% of all that income goes directly to the musician.)

Also interesting are his comments on the unexpected role of cover songs in online music sales