Indie Music Site CDBaby Gets Sold, Finally
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
CDBaby, one of the largest online sellers of music for indie bands, has finally been sold, to CD and DVD duplicator Disc Makers. The deal also includes CD Baby's online storefront and Web hosting service, HostBaby. The The Portland, Oregon-based company was launched in 1998, and over the last 10 years became a popular sales conduit for unsigned artists, who received $6 to $12 for each CD sold via the service, much higher compared to label deals. CDBaby has been working with Disc Makers for the last seven years. The company said that with over 2 million digitized tracks under management, CD Baby is also the largest provider of indie music for Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iTunes and others like Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) MP3, Napster (NSDQ: NAPS), and Rhapsody, though I am sure other indie labels would dispute that. Disc Makers already operates DigStation, a downloadable music store serving independent artists that was launched about 18 months ago.
CD Baby will continue to operate as a separate company, focused on online CD sales, distribution, and download sales. More on the sale at CBaby's founder's blog, and official release.
By Rafat Ali