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I found my CD on Swap A CD
Does anyone else think this is a little shady?

More than a little shady Steve! It came as a complete surprise to you?

The Internet is bringing new meaning to "free enterprise".

John

Hmm, they've got two of mine listed...

My understanding is that they don't actually have your CD, but their members do. They act as a middle-man for people to exchange CDs. I'm not positive on this, though, and I can't really look that well at the moment, because I'm writing this from my phone. I'll try to check it out later. Still, even if I am right, I'm not really sure if this is a positive, negative, or neutral thing for musicians. There's a couple of different ways to look at it...

I just checked. same here. they don't have the third CD, DIGITAL ECLIPSE, though.

Markus
www.cdbaby.com/markusspence3

Mine is listed but they say they have 0 copies.

It sounds a lot like bookmooch.com, where members swap books. I've received a few that way, and have sent a few as well.
Membership is free and there are no charges at all. However, members pay the book's shipping fees. You can elect to send books only locally or internationally as well.

I can see the up- and downsides with regard to music, however.
On the positive side, it could lead to someone actually purchasing the CD or other CDs by the same artist if they were happy with the CD they'd got by way of a swap.

For instance, last week I wanted book 2 in a particular series that I love. There are seven books in the series and I already had # 1 and # 3. A bookmooch member in Sweden had a copy of # 2, but none of the others were present on the site. So I simply ordered all the rest (secondhand) from Amazon.

Something similar could happen with music. Say someone can't get a particular CD by swapping, she/he might be motivated enough to actually go out and buy it. Or by the same token, she/he could spread the word about how good the CD is, and other people will go out and buy it... ;-)

(I note though that SWAP A CD has a charge of 49 cents per swap. Presumably this goes to the website owner. Maybe a case could be made for the artist to get a least a part of that.)

Donna

If someone buys a CD, they can do pretty much what they want with it, loan it out, sell it, swap it, use it for a Frisbee, I guess the same thing applies to books. But one thing you can't do legally is copy it. If they copy it and give or sell or swap the original, they are suppose to destroy any copies they made. I doubt that they do that though. It seems most people have as much respect for the copyright law, as a tomcat has for a marriage license.

Hee. I wonder of the "Terms" agreement on that site includes the statement "I swear on a dead cat that I have erased all this music from my hard drive and various music-player devices before putting this CD up for swap. No way no how will I still have this music once the CD leaves my hands. Honest. For real for true."

Something similar was happening on Amazon a couple years ago.
Our CD's were being sold by third parties. But usually they listed O (zero) copies in stock.
I think these folks simply Hijack the information of listed CD's from other sites.
Mine is there too and I don't think they actually have one.

If you click on the CD it has a buy from I-Tunes link. I wonder if you buy it from I-tunes this site charges that $.49

Guys,

Once you put music on the internet, on a CD, offer it for sale or in one of these "Music Libraries" you have lost all control over it. This is the subject of so many of these threads. Loss of intelectual property. In some cases you get paid for it. In most, you don't. Peer to peer or file sharing is accounting for about half the music out there. That Genie was out of the bottle a long time ago.
The bottom line is that people have become accustomend to thinking that all music is free. There are contengents in Congress and the world markets fighting to abolish all copyright laws. Technology is re-writing every aspect of life as we sit here doing this.
The only thing you can do is try to monitor what is going on in the world and being prepared for it.

MAB

Mine's there too. Mine doesn't have the cover. They must have mined the information from CDBaby. I haven't read their deal, so haven't figured out yet what the scam is. Most likely they will buy one from CDBaby once someone wants to swap. Or they might burn one. Anyone read their deal? I wonder where they make their money. If no one answers back, I'll check them out later.

OK
I just went to the site and read this first paragraph.
It is copied and pasted from their site so I guess I am stealing it



Here is what I think.
lets say you are looking for a particular CD. You log on, join up, and list ten CD's for swap. (you don't actually have them but you say you do). By that you get a credit. But it looks like you still pay the $.49 for the swap.
I don't know what you do if you don't have the CD but if you could get a CD that you really want that might be by a Great artist that is out of print it might be worth it to buy a CD at a cheap price to make the deal.
In any case the site makes $.49 per swap.
They don't carry any inventory. The only overhead is the site maintenance.

But, if someone wants to swap with me, they can forget it. If there's a CD I want, I'll just download a pirate copy for free.

I wouldn't mind, though, if someone bought one of mine from CDBaby to get something else

Mike
They have mine listed but it says they don't have any. So if they want to swap it they will have to buy it.
I'm all for that.

wonder if this is part of the opt-in for additional digital distribution cdbaby talks about
seriosly i have found my cd's all over the internet places for anywhere from .49 to 1.29 per song per download...but if i'm reading right these guys do the whole cd for .49...
i would love to meet the pr*ck that is doing such a service for us the artists, wouldn't you, i'd certainly like to shake his...
FRIGGIN' HEAD OFF HIS SHOULDERS
take a deep breath, oommmm,ooommm

I dunno Moker
The idea of TRADING or Swapping CD's doesn't bother me much. They have a book swap site as well. We have used book stores and used CD stores. Used guitar stores.
But they would have to copy the book to keep it. And you can't just copy a guitar.
As long as someone purchases the CD to begin with I don't see much problem with it.
BUT and it's a big BUTT. The person trading the CD should not have a copy in his I-pod or on his hard drive or anywhere else for that matter.

So I'm with you. Kick their friggin' butt.

It will never happen. In fact the tax on "dead cat" swearing in Chicago is enough to resurrect a dead cat! Then you would have the damn "cat resurrection" taxes...It just never ends.

the best way to get paid for creating music is threefold...
1. play a live show and at the end of the performance GET PAID
2. sell your cd at those performances and GET PAID right then
3. get what you've written on the radio and hope you GET PAID

all these internet sites that sell, trade, swap, whatever ya wanna call it, i have my serious doubts about the validity of the numbers they actually report and pay out on.

I emailed them and this is their answer. My email to them is just below their email to me.




Dear Everett,

We have a strict policy against swapping copied material. Any member who is reported of this will have their account closed immediately. The whole purpose of our site is to allow members to share great music with each other. We in no way are trying to rip off artists and we actually have many artists contact us wanting to be included in our site because they see the value in getting their music out there.

Sincerely,

The SwapaCD Team

--------------------------------------------------

Are you not aiding and abetting people to break the copyright law. If someone buys a CD, they are not permitted to copy that CD, except for their own use. They are not legally permitted to sell or give away or swap those copies. If they sell, swap or give away the original copy, they are required to destroy any copies that they made for their own use. Intellectual property is under attack from all sides, this is just another way of skirting the law for personal gains at the expense of others.

They already have Justice's cd, A Girl Is More, listed (with no copies). The cd was only released a month ago. They don't show the cover, so I suspect they don't get the info from CDBaby or I Tunes, since they both show the cover. I know that DiscMakers listed the cd with some national list of cd's but I cannot remember the name of that list.

Tom

Everett
Did you really expect a different response.

at $00.49 per swap It looks like they made $1388.00 last week for hosting this site.
Not a bad deal I'd say.
Kind of wish I would have thought of it.
And we all know how much people like free music.

I would like to know who is swapping mine though. Seems like I should get a share of that $00.49

This is from their site.

CDs

* CDs Available: 227,770
* CDs Posted in last 60 minutes: 55
* CDs Posted All Time: 640,515
* Unique Titles Available: 56,730

CDs Mailed

* CDs Mailed All-Time: 229,297
* CDs Mailed in last 7 days: 2,833
* CDs Mailed Today: 167

Members

* Members Online Now: 125
* Members Logged In Today: 777
* Public Profiles: 3,429

at $00.49 per swap It looks like they made $1388.00 last week for hosting this site. Not a bad deal I'd say - Bill

It's criminal! They’re unconscionable pirates in my opinion.

John

Thanks everyone for checking this out. Now, I know a number of Artists who make songs available for folks to download for free. I've done it for a couple of my songs but not for my whole CD. I guess I would have wanted a little input in what could be swapped without me and my publisher getting at least the $.016 (or so) I get per listen or $.095 (or so) I get from a stream on other websites. Welcome to The Wild Wild Internet!