By: Alyssa Fredericks

There is no question that music is a powerful force in people’s lives; many of us feel we simply could never survive without music. With the growing popularity of blogs and podcasts on the internet, a new era for music lovers has begun, in the form of sharing mp3s.

Many bloggers and podcasters post mp3s on their sites, with the idea that the people following their sites can listen to a track or two and then purchase the remainder of an album if they like the music.

Unfortunately, many of these bloggers and podcasters are posting tracks that they don’t necessarily have the rights to give away. There was a time when this went largely unnoticed by the RIAA and, while it was still very much illegal, nothing was done about it.

We are now seeing this slowly come to an end. Not only are many of the blog and podcast hosting sites shutting down blogs and podcasts with illegally posted music, they are also not allowing them to post any mp3s at all, whether they have confirmed information that the mp3s are legal or not. Another issue we are seeing is companies that allow non-cleared music to be posted up are simply being shut down, like in the case of Muxtape. Muxtape was a site that allowed music lovers to upload playlists of mp3s for other music fans to enjoy and discover music. Unfortunately, nearly all of the music on Muxtape was not legally cleared by the Rightsholders of the music, and so on August 18^th, 2008, only 5 months after it was created, the RIAA shut down Muxtape.

This is a terrible solution to such a widespread problem. If you shut down the tastemakers, you are losing a huge source of free promotion for your releases.

And in this age where people are so used to getting everything they want for free, very few people are willing to pay for an album they know nothing about. It’s like many other consumer goods out there. Would anyone in their right mind purchase a car before giving it a test run? Of course not. In this economy? Would you purchase a pair of sunglasses before trying them on and seeing how they look? No, of course you wouldn’t. Because they would almost certainly look really terrible on you and then you just wasted $15 on a pair of sunglasses that make you look dumb…

*ahem* The point here is, the almighty dollar just doesn’t go very far anymore. People are more careful about what they spend their money on, and this includes music. Luckily, this is where Promonet comes in.

Not only do you have an expansive site filled to the brim with any kind of music you can imagine, but these releases also have PromoTracks flagged, which means that the bloggers and podcasters, as well as digital music services, who use Promonet can find your track and feature it on their site. Their site has may have 100 followers passionate about music who give a listen to your track and fall in love. Now they have to have it! But where can they get it? Why, in the buylink that’s posted up with the track, of course, courtesy of IODAPromonet and our code generator (learn how to use this tool here).

So, do yourself a favor and flag a PromoTrack or two. Let them have a taste. They’ll come crawling back for more.