I recently learned about a very cool music website called Magnatune.com. It's really a record lable but, in its words, it's "not evil". Magnatune allows you to LISTEN to music for free (you can listen to the whole song for free, not just a 30 second taster), and if you like it you can BUY it. A very interesting aspect of Magnatune is that you get to name your price when you buy the music (for an album, prices fall between $5 and $18). By making the price flexible, Magnatune lets the buyer indicate how passionate she is about the particular song or album she purchases. (Artists get half the price of the sale.) Interestingly, many Magnatune users elect to pay more than the "recommended price" of $8 per album.
The founder of Magnatune, John Buckman (click here for his blog), recently spoke on a panel put together by Stanford Law School's newly rejuvinated Enterntainment and Sports Law Society (SESLA) on the topic of "Getting Creative" with music distribution.
I praise the company and its founder for setting up a creative and legal alternative for releasing music to users via the internet.