I only ever cringed at the idea of giving away music for free out of the fear that it would be stolen. I don't mean pirated, I mean I was afraid that a company would steal my copyright and claim it as their own.
This is very interesting, I think they are on the right track. I have many friends who are in indie bands, and it's true that a vast amount of their income is from concerts and merch sales. I think this even extends to big bands, but I don't know that first hand. CD sales are only good for the manufacturers and the labels.
The only problem that I see with what they said in the article, is that it is very difficult for a band with little/no outside exposure to generate enough traffic to their website to monetize ads. Most of my friends have severely neglected their own band websites in favor of their Myspace page, just because they don't get near as many hits there.
There has to be a better way. What do you guys think?
