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One employee at a major digital music vendor, who didn't want his name used in this story, called his efforts to sign up indie labels an attempt "to build community around a scene." At the same time, he dismissed similar companies. "They want the recognizable names so they can assure Wall Street."

Sites like EMusic.com, Musicmaker.com, MP3.com, Mjuice.com and Epitonic.com ostensibly exist to sell or to give away downloads. A whole album, delivered as a series of digital sound files, can go for up to $9. Singles sell for a dollar or two a track, and sometimes less.

Matt Jervis, who manages music content and independent label promotion for Mjuice.com, admits that selling downloads isn't keeping his company afloat -- that's taken care of by parternships with other companies and advertisers. It's the same story for the rest of these companies: They all hope to be in place when the primarily digital-only future comes. But in the meantime, with chump-change prices and users who still expect free music, the songs aren't making them much money. That said, having brand-name music does bring them the traffic that can prove they're a worthy investment. Therefore, it makes sense for them to give indies space on their Web sites or give some labels advances on sales, just for access to the label's catalog. In exchange, the labels receive free promotion -- and potentially more sales -- for their artists.

"It's comparable to the interest in the early '90s," says Kill Rock Stars' Moon of the attention and cash offered by these companies. "It brings money into your deal, which is in some ways a good thing -- unless you're too beholden to them." His label signed a non-exclusive deal with CDuctive, which was acquired by Emusic in December. (Kill Rock Stars is in the process of switching over to an exclusive deal with longtime independent label distributor Mordam, which has branched out into selling downloads.) The label also offers free MP3s on the company Web site -- something its 20-year-old webmaster lobbied for.

Moon admits that he was at first "jumpy" about giving the tracks away. "We're in the business of selling music," he says. "But I like to believe that we have really good bands, and the more people hear them the more they'll be sucked in. I'm a forward-looking person, but I have other forward-thinking interests. So Kill Rock Stars is not going to be one of those labels that tries every new idea. We'll just be a few steps behind."

Like Moon, other indie types are trying to figure out how their ethics will survive on the Internet. Toomey and Thomson hope that the Machine can help establish an online conscience. One of the first steps is taking a stand on what they see as one of the more immediate threats: the exclusive deals offered, or sometimes demanded in return for cash advances, by the download sites. Usually, in an exclusive deal, labels hand over the digital music rights to their catalog of past and present releases to one site. The label continues to sell the CDs and records themselves, through traditional distributors, record shops and the like.

"It's a very different media playing field," says Toomey. "A lot more companies are diversified. As it gets more and more consolidated I think it's important for independent artists to know as much as they can. This environment is too fluid and changing for anyone to sign an exclusive deal. These sites could merge three times and you could be stuck with them for several years."

Toomey is right. The speed at which Internet companies make deals and snap up others is unprecedented. In November, EMusic.com acquired CDuctive.com and Tunes.com, the operator of the RollingStone.com and DownBeatJazz.com sites, within a month of each other. Most labels that had deals with CDuctive, now have deals with EMusic.

Next page | "These young kids that don't even know what a record player is"