ReadWriteWeb

Centuries of struggling by artists and musicians to make a living have come to this. While the rest of the music industry is fighting to figure out how to stay viable when so much content is available for free on the internet - the band Weezer may have solved the problem.

Weezer released its latest album today, with a Snuggie. See the video below.

When Radiohead keyboardist / guitarist Jonny Greenwood shrugs off the issue of audio fidelity, indie musicians should take note. Given that Radiohead is perhaps one of the biggest proponents of alternative music monetization, it's ironic that Greenwood is discrediting one of the industry's key price differentiators. Musicians with tracks on iTunes, Amazon and DIY stores like Bandcamp have often chosen to price MP3s at lower rates while higher quality recordings have fetched more per track. In a recent article with The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones, Greenwood admits there is little reason for the MP3 generation to look for a higher quality experience.

Fresh Hot Radio is a slick new web application that aims for some very specific objectives: High quality, fresh, free-to-download independent music that you can start listening to right away. Part Pandora, part YTMND, and as minimalistic as you can get, Fresh Hot Radio always brings hand-picked, high-energy tracks that you can enjoy while you work.

New service ffffoundtape attempts to re-create the same positive sharing environment of its sister site Ffffound, but with music instead of pictures. Once bookmarked, songs can be bundled up into playlists that you can share with friends. Registration is free and creating an account is easy, once you get through their Mad Libs-style registration page. Unfortunately, the process after that is not as straightforward as it could be.

People's Music Store is a newly launched DIY online music store. It was created by the founder of MP3 reseller Bleep.com, Ged Day. People's Music Store styles itself as "the first music store entirely powered by music fans." Basically the service allows you to set up your own custom-designed record store, with music chosen from a catalogue of indie record labels (so far no major record label music). The idea is that you earn points, equivalent to 10% of the price of the single, EP or album that you sell. These points can only be used to buy other music items on the People's Music Store site.

If you have been on the Internet for long enough, you will surely remember the old MP3.com, which was first geared towards independent musicians, but later also allowed you to listen to your own music collection online. Lala, which launched yesterday, features a similar concept. It is first and foremost a music store with a unique sales pitch: pay 10 cents for the right to listen to a song online and between 79 and 89 cents on top of that for the DRM-free MP3 file. For a lot of users, however, the fact that Lala also clones MP3.com's online music locker will be the real attraction of this service.