CD Baby Sold

Kevin Maney says: Literally, just as I sent my first CD to CD Baby -- the company gets sold to Disc Makers, which is a small-batch CD duplicator used by a lot of independent musicians, bought CD Baby for an undisclosed sum.

CD Baby has played an interesting role in the Internet's effect on music. It was started 10 years ago by a musician named Derek Sivers, who has over the years dispensed lots of on-line advice and truly seemed interested in helping 20-year-olds in garage bands find their way. As I discovered when I got into it just a week ago, it's grown into quite an operation. You send your CD to CD Baby, and the Web site sells it for you -- much the way Amazon.com sells CDs. Then CD Baby rips your CD and -- for nothing but a cut of future sales -- gets your music on iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster and just about every other digital music service. It's basically become THE one-stop distribution outlet for independent musicians.

So, I wish CD Baby well. I hope the new owners pump money into it and help it reach even further. In the meantime, my CD -- "Privacy" by Kevin Maney & His Briefs -- hasn't yet been processed and put up on the CD Baby site. Should be any day now. I'll let you know.