I wonder if Peter and PG fans are aware of the music community at
http://amiestreet.com, as it's a promising model for music sales and distribution, post-Radiohead and Peter's own experiments in this area.
It's a very clever idea: musicians (signed and unsigned) can post music and make it available for download to the world. Initially, all downloads are free, encouraging people to download and explore all new music posted on the site (within genres such as electronic, alternative, rock, etc).
As songs (and albums) become more popular, the price of each track rises gradually to a maximum of 98c (50p in UK money at current rates). In this way, more expensive tracks are an indicator of popularity over time, and so people feel attracted towards downloading those too, as they may be good.
People have the option to download entire albums, again free initially, but over time the price rises as more people download, to a maximum of a few dollars. So prices are always low.
I like the site, and use it myself to publish music. 70% of the download fee goes to the artist. There's lots of new stuff up there, as there is also on www.garageband.com, which uses a slightly different model.
christopher rye
