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Some commercial thoughts

In some ways the options for a independant online music publisher seem to be fairly limited. Althought the it is now possible to make work available - securing visibility remains an exceptional challenge.

The MP3 format, a song lenght around 3 minutes and a unit price around $1 seem to have become de facto standards for the on line music industry. The file size/download times means that the market is biased towards those with broadband connections.

The other main legal option is the subscription approach but I think that is only really viable for those with a large and diverse back catalog or a regular and high volume of new work being published. There are sites offering facilities for new bands etc but they don't sit well with an independant publisher.

A few years ago the biggest barrier was processing online transactions for low unit prices. BitPass and PayPal have lowered that barrier and made this market much more accessible both in terms of reduced administrative and technical hurdles - well within the grasp of any reasonably experience webmaster and commercially viable.

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