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CD Baby is an online music store. Since 1998, CD Baby has become the largest independent CD store on the World Wide Web . It sells CDs by independent musicians (meaning that these artists are not signed to any major record companies but distribute their CDs either through their own small labels or through small Independent Record Label s). CD Baby gives artists a larger cut of profits than some other music stores do (usually anywhere from six to twelve dollars a CD). In addition, CD Baby is nonexclusive and allows anyone willing to sell their products through the website. Well-known artists such as Jon Brion , Art Paul Schlosser and Zolof The Rock & Roll Destroyer as well as lesser known artists such as Balkanarama sell their work through the website. CD Baby is operated in Portland, Oregon, USA and was founded by musician Derek Sivers in 1997 . CDBaby has sold over $15 million in independent CDs to people around the world. CD Baby is the second biggest online store for independent music artists, second only to Amazon . CD BABY AND MUSICIANS Any artist may sell their music at CD Baby. There is no minimum of CDs an artist has to sell to stay on their website; even an artist who only sold one CD per year would still remain a part of the CD Baby catalogue. In 2004, CD Baby signed a deal with Apple and managed to get every artist who wanted digital music distribution on ITunes . Some CD Baby artists have been featured as the free song of the week on iTunes, giving the artists exposure (though no direct revenue). Soon thereafter other digital online music stores wanted to have the CD Baby catalogue as well and now CD Baby artists can be found on almost every music platform such as Rhapsody , Napster , MusicNet , etc. SUCCESSFUL ARTISTS AT CD BABY Apart from the many unknown independent artists, there are several artists now at CD Baby who were formerly signed by a major record label and who, for one reason or another, sell their music through CD Baby now as well. These include Tiffany (who was a major superstar in the 80's), Lory Bianco (who used to be very successful in Germany and Italy in the 1980's), Jack Johnson started to sell his music at CD Baby first (he actually went the other way around and is now signed by a major record label), there is even an album with early demo songs by Madonna available that is being sold by her former producer Stephen Bray . ORIGINS TO PRESENT CD Baby began with its founder and president, Derek Sivers in Woodstock, New York . Sivers was a full-time musician who created the website to sell a CD he'd made online. As a hobby, he also began to sell the CDs of local bands and friends. Because he was already making a living as a musician, he was able to be flexible with making CD Baby the "utopian" online store for independent musicians. To do this, Sivers followed four main principles based on his personal preferences:
In addition, Sivers made sure to listen to every CD he sold (currently someone is employed to do this). The operation was run mainly in Sivers' bedroom. Sivers eventually hired John Steup as his Vice President and first employee. In an interview , Sivers recalls saying to Steup: "This thing might get huge one day. I mean, we might have 100 artists here." Steadily, CD Baby grew as more artists wanted to sell their music through the website. Sivers always dealt with the artists directly. CD Baby was somewhat inspired by a website called Songs.com run by Paul Schatzkin . Songs.com, though not having the nonexclusive policy CD Baby does, was also a website that sold primarily independent music. However, six months after Songs.com was sold to Gaylord Entertainment for $1.2 million, the website became defunct. Schatzkin would then send an email to members of Songs.com, recommending CD Baby. Sivers never accepts money to advertise a CD more than any other CD and doesn't negotiate with investors or display advertisements. Currently, there are forty or so employees of CD Baby whose work ranges from warehouse work to customer service to listening to CDs. Though Sivers is not interested in selling digital music by creating a website such as MP3.com or EMusic , he has been approached by Apple ITunes to put the CD Baby catalogue on the iTunes Music Store as a digital medium. Rhapsody, MusicMatch and Napster gave Sivers similar requests. Sivers decided to introduce digital downloading as an optional service for CD Baby's artists. {Link without Title} Although the majority of artists who use CD Baby are North American, about thirty percent of orders for CD Baby are overseas. For this reason, Sivers aims to create CD Baby warehouses in Japan, Europe and Canada. In 2003, Sivers won a World Technology Award for Entertainment. STATISTICS CD Baby statistics as of September 10, 2005:
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