CASH Music:

CASH Music is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Our software will provide a set of open source applications that will provide musicians the ability to communicate, promote and sell products directly to their audience. We want our software and engineers to set the pace and provide an alternative to the media giants.

Sustainability for artists is the goal, and an open source solution gives musicians and coders the power to build solutions together. We can’t rely on Facebook, the RIAA, or even Apple to invent a new model that works with the best interests of artists in mind. Let's create those models together.

Cool!

MediaNet has announced their Media Selector tool allowing for an easy way to sell MP3's from one's blog or band website.

That seems cool but it's hard to understand why you wouldn't be as good or better off just setting up an iTunes or Amazon affiliate account. That said, I may be testing it out soon and will share what I learn because there certainly could be advantages of which I'm unaware.

Official Site: MediaNet

SoundExchange has created a New Artist Checklist of things to do when you're getting started with an emphasis on protecting your intellectual property rights and distributing your work.

Via Hypebot: Music Industry News.

Evolvor is well worth a look for musicians doing their own publicity or, really, anybody in the marketing or publicist game whether on one's own behalf or that of others.

They've just announced the release of their Label 2.0 Press Kit Maker that is designed to encourage busy bloggers to post your free content by preformatting it for easy posting.

As I suggested in the comments over there, since some "cutting edge" bloggers get their panties bunched up when they hear the phrase "press release", you might consider using terms like "content" and "articles" especially since that opens up the possibilities even more.  Of course, everyday people may also hear the term "press release" and think "dry", "boring", "not part of my world."  So that's a consideration.

Right now I mainly see people sending out embed codes for video so, if that's working, other preformatted content might work as well.

In the hip hop scene you might actually have more luck with hip hop news sites, since I see a lot of them posting material I'm also receiving.

I would also suggest building relationships with small sites and people that communicate back. Focusing on getting on large sites at the beginning is a real hard sell but building relationships with people who are doing solid things online but aren't so well known is probably a smarter choice for a variety of reasons.

And, if you do a traditional press release focused on hip hop, R&B, urban arts/culture/fashion or related sectors of the music industry, please do send them and all other content to:
hiphoppress(at)netweed(dot)com