Internet undoubtedly is a very powerful tool. One classic example is how it benefits bands and their followers. It provides a way to find gigs, places to stay, and people to [whom to] sell tickets and merchandise of the certain band a fan is up to.

Many local music group or bands had already discovered how they can benefit from their presence online. Some record labels that were not previously able to get their product in many record stores, or to many buyers through mail order, or played on the radio, can easily hav sell music online without the need to record for a major label. To elaborate on the internet’s benefits on music production would take a whole new blog. Apart from the promotional avenues, it also provides platforms to mix and master the product before the release.  It is simply realizing that they are able to build a following and sell their music online without major label relationships. Notable groups like Radiohead, the Beastie Boys, and Nine Inch Nails have in recent years released their albums on their own and now successfully earning online.

Another example is the Toronto band Metric, as featured in New York Times article in 2009. The band released three albums on independent labels, chose to pass on major label contracts because of the degree to which it would have been financially indebted to the companies and the rights the band would give up in signing a major label contract. But they realized it could have been better if they produced and released its own album and that’s what they did. With some funding from Canadian government and doing the hard work of selling directly on iTunes, they ended up successfully gaining sales online.

As shared by Rich Egan, the co-founder of the independent label Vagrant Records, “Selling music online is not the only way to benefit from an internet presence. Merely sharing music may ultimately lead to sales. “[o]ur music, by and large, when kids listen to it, they share it with their friends. . . . Then they go buy the record; they take ownership of it”.