About CD Baby

Who/What are we?

CD Baby is a little online record store that sells albums by independent musicians.
[In•de•pen•dent: (adj.) Not having sold one's life, career, and creative works over to a corporation.]
We're just a bunch of people in a cool Portland, Oregon, warehouse that looks like a playground. We listen to every album we sell before we sell it, so we can help you find other albums you'll like.
We only sell music that comes directly from the musicians. No distributors. Musicians send us their music. We digitize and warehouse, sell them to you, and pay the musicians directly.
Cool thing: in a regular record deal or distribution deal, musicians only make $1-$2 per album, if they ever get paid by their label. When selling through CD Baby, musicians make $6-$12 per album, and get paid weekly.
In business, and thriving, since March 1998. We're one of the largest sellers of independent music on the web.
Here's our Wikipedia page, for more info.

I was just selling my own CD in 1997, making my living by touring and doing sessions, and asked some fellow musicians if they'd like me to sell their CD, too. It was supposed to be a hobby. (Making music was my real career.)
For the first year, CD Baby was just me. I'd put the day's orders in my backpack and ride my bike down to the post office.
But then friends told friends, and now my little hobby has paid over $50 million directly to independent musicians around the world.

We NEVER give or sell your personal info to any other company - EVER! (No not even your email address!)
Only the musician whose music you buy will know who you are.
If you don't even want the musician to know about you, just say so at the bottom of your order form.
Your credit card info is never stored, and never seen by anyone. We don't store it in your permanent customer info. The card number is erased immediately after the sale, for extra protection. There is nothing of yours here to steal.
Yes this means you'll have to type your card number again when you return, but we hope you appreciate the extra safety and privacy it gives you.

Our servers are running Linux, Apache, PHP, and MySQL.
No Microsoft products were used in the creating of this website.
Full 128-bit secure SSL connection protects all of your private information from snooping eyes.
Everything here is strict XHTML 1.1 and should work in any web browser.
CD Baby website (front end and back end) made by me - Derek Sivers. It's my favorite hobby.