NEWS: Wherever I download my hat... Paul Young opens music website

Budding musicians take note: singer Paul Young has co-founded Etopia Music, a new website launched today with the aim of giving unnamed bands the chance to promote and sell their own music online.

Musicians will be allowed to choose how much they charge for their songs, and be allowed to keep 80 per cent of the revenue.

Artists can set the price of a track as low as 50p, and the downloads are offered in MP3 format at a high-quality bit-rate of 320 Kbps. All tracks are free of DRM (digital rights management) technology, so will play on any MP3 player.

Bands will be charged £4.50 a year to get their profile on the site and enough storage space to store three tracks. More extensive packages start at £19.50.

As well as many unknown acts, there are some more familiar names on the site, including Paul Weller, Fatboy Slim and Bloc party.

Technorati Tags: download, DRM, MP3, music

Andy Clough

Andy is Global Brand Director of What Hi-Fi? and has been a technology journalist for 30 years. During that time he has covered everything from VHS and Betamax, MiniDisc and DCC to CDi, Laserdisc and 3D TV, and any number of other formats that have come and gone. He loves nothing better than a good old format war. Andy edited several hi-fi and home cinema magazines before relaunching whathifi.com in 2008 and helping turn it into the global success it is today. When not listening to music or watching TV, he spends far too much of his time reading about cars he can't afford to buy.