Budding musicians take note: singer Paul Young has co-founded Etopia Music, a new website launched today with the aim of giving unnamed bands the chance to promote and sell their own music online.
Musicians will be allowed to choose how much they charge for their songs, and be allowed to keep 80 per cent of the revenue.
Artists can set the price of a track as low as 50p, and the downloads are offered in MP3 format at a high-quality bit-rate of 320 Kbps. All tracks are free of DRM (digital rights management) technology, so will play on any MP3 player.
Bands will be charged £4.50 a year to get their profile on the site and enough storage space to store three tracks. More extensive packages start at £19.50.
As well as many unknown acts, there are some more familiar names on the site, including Paul Weller, Fatboy Slim and Bloc party.
