Well, they don't have the WHOLE back catalog, as some of that has been
bought back or is under control of a different label now. Plus, I
believe that the bands/performers have to agree to have their music
available for download, which probably limits the availability of other
discs.  But since I tend to be more interested in the "weird" stuff,
what's left is usually what I'm interested in!!

There are several people on this list who have music available on eMusic
- they'd be able to explain those intricacies more than I can.

What I appreciate is that they do pay royalties, but they are also much
more reasonably priced than other download services (with no DRM either)
- what I haven't ever heard is whether the actual payment to the
labels/artists is much different than through the higher priced
services.  I'm guessing that much of the 88 cent Wal-mart and 99 cent
Itunes download price is due to administration overhead, not
artist/label payments.  But as I said, others would be able to speak to
that much more authoritatively than I can.

Jason Damas wrote:

Also, speaking of eMusic, I'm considering finally getting a subscription
myself. is it true that they have the entire SST and Stiff catalogs, as
well as a lot on Merge and Matador? The only thing I DONT like is that
you can't browse the offerings before signing up, and I've already had a
free trial before so I can't do it again. --Jason