I have recently purchased two CDs made by two independent artists. Considering all the previous years of my CD-purchase absence, this has been quite a change for me.

The two factors that brought me to this decision are: (1) me having a PayPal account and (2) realization that I am being a bit hypocritical by saying that new business models are needed with the arrival of digital age. While it is true that the customers can now get music directly from the musicians, directly supporting them, gradually making the whole middle-man concept redundant, the system does not work if the customers do not take some initiative and start buying these products.

The first CD was made by Alex Day, a YouTube celebrity from Great Britain. I have started watching YouTube more regularly a month or two ago, stumbled upon his channel, subscribed ... after a while I have noticed that he is going to release a CD, had one of those impulsive-shopping moments ... I think Alex has a lot of potential and I also can't wait to see what he wrote in his novel, due to be released in 2010.

The second CD is Josh Woodward's Breadcrumbs. Actually Josh puts all his songs on the Internet under the Creative Commons license. This kind of makes him my kind-of role model when it comes to sharing ones work. Of course this status does not help him a lot, so I decided to by his new album, despite the fact that I have downloaded the MP3s from his site a week before that ... or was it exactly because of that? Yes, that is what Creative Commons is all about in my opinion: supporting artists because of the great things they do, not paying a lot of money to get something that you have been previously brainwashed to want by the mass media ...