Seattle pop rockers Harvey Danger have made their latest album, "Little By Little", available for download as a torrent or zipped mp3s. This comes on the heels of a Barenaked Ladies album released without DRM on a USB thumbdrive. In an eloquent, if longwinded, press release on the Harvey Danger web site, the band explains why they have opted to give it away, and foot the bill for bandwidth to boot:

"In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as "illegal" file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little..., available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We're not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we're putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends." ... "Meanwhile, please enjoy the record. Everything else is secondary."

I haven't given it a spin yet, but remember being a fan of a couple of their older radio ditties. A close association with The Long Winters doesn't hurt much either. So, give it a try, and buy the cd if you like it. Let's prove them right.

harveydanger.com

PS - Thanks to Skampy for the tip.