Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie

If you haven’t heard of noisetrade.com it is definitely worth checking out. Co-founded by Derek Webb, Mark Nicholas, David McCollum, and Brannon McAlister, noisetrade serves as a website that allows artists to connect directly with fans and let their fans directly connect to the artists. The idea is that artists can get their music out and fans can get and share the music they want with their friends.

How does it work?

“…artists can freely distribute their music online, via NoiseTrade’s remarkable and embeddable widget, offering fans the choice to tell 3 friends or to pay any amount in exchange for an immediate download.”

Seems fair enough. An artist gets extra promotion and the opportunity to expand their base while the music fan gets a copy of the music they wanted for free. If you don’t feel like sharing music with friends, pay a little something to get the tracks (the minimum is $1) to download. Seems like everyone could possibly win in this scenario.

For an artist, an email address and zip code is quite a valuable bit of information. With this information, they can more easily provide information about when they’ll be out on tour in your area so that you can come to the show and purchase tickets and merchandise directly from them, in addition to other promotional information they could provide regarding album releases or other special events. However if fans choose to pay, 90% of the funds go directly to the artist.

Below is one of the widgets you can embed on your blog or social networking sites. I shared the email address of 3 friends and was able to download Sixpence None the Richer’s newest EP for free. That’s right, Sixpence is apparently making a comeback. I’m a fan.

Check out the EP sample below and if you’re interested, click to purchase or share some email addresses.

For more information, check out noisetrade.com