Finally, music artists have come up with a way to earn money and circumvent the music industry through weedshare, and online service that allows artists to put up their own songs and charge as much as they want for them, but usually up to a dollar for a song. I think it’s a great idea, if it takes off that is. At least artists now seem to be starting to move towards a model where they make their own rules and earn their own keep on their own terms. Also, the more you share and other people share the better. This is better explained in this section in the FAQ:

The concept is pretty basic: Weed rewards people who share files and respect artists’ rights.

You can play a Weed file three times for free on any PC. After three free plays, you’re asked to pay for the file. You can use any current Windows Media-compatible player software to play the file. The Weed software, which keeps track of your account information, is used to purchase files.

Once you purchase a Weed file, you’re free to play it all you want on up to three PCs. You also can burn the file to CD and play it on your stereo system, or transfer it to a portable device like the Creative Labs Nomad, the Rio S10, or any current Windows CE PDA.

Best of all, you can share Weed files with anyone you like, as long as the files remain in their original form as Windows Media files. And if someone you share a file with purchases that file, you’ll earn a payment for helping to distribute it.

Specifically, the artist always receives 50% of each sale, and the rest goes to those who helped distribute the file. You get 20%, the person who shared the file with you gets 10%, and the person who shared the file with that person gets 5% of the sale price. Weed receives the final 15% for service and software maintenance costs.

All purchases and distributor payments are made into your Weed account through PayPal. Deposits and withdrawals from your Weed account cost 50 cents, but all other transactions are free. You must have a PayPal account to make deposits to your Weed account.

Some friends were over and I took some pictures of their baby daugher which they loved. My Olympus camera is over 3 years old right now and this got me thinking about what new stuff is available. I bought my 3 megapixel Olympus camera for about 300 pounds and now the superb Canon IXUS 5 Megapixel is only 239 pounds! It’s quite an amazing camera, more than good enough for a lot of things. A great recommendation.