So, I made sort of free album, I'm thinking of trying out distribution with torrent thing. I'm pretty much unfamiliar with it. I think I could use some tips. How do I do this? Where can I post it? Is it worth the trouble?

I stumbled upon this:
http://www.mininova.org/apply
I'm not sure what to think about it. Isn't it a ware-site? Or not? Anyone tried this service?

http://www.legaltorrents.com/ ?

I periodically have to contact torrentz suppliers/members who offer downloads of my material for free without my permission, and request that the link is removed. So far everyone has complied, but as soon as one disappears, another pops up!

I wouldn't worry so much, but my band always kept with the punk ethos of selling our stuff for as little as possible so as not to rip folk off, but making a little back to fund other activities ... not to mention the numerous freebie/cheap gigs in support of good causes/charities.

Being a self employed parent, even a little lost is a little too much .... I hate torrentz!

i've tried to do this as well (release a free album as a torrent) and it may work better if you are super popular, because torrents rely on multiple users to "exist". have a lot of your friends seed it; i would have done that, but i have very few friends. also, it seems like the whole torrent thing may be on the verge of dying (at least in its current state) because all the big trackers are getting shut down and arrested. it's great technology, but ended up on the wrong side of history

I believe the original poster WANTS to distribute their music via torrents. It can be a very effective marketing tool.

Try soundclick, myspace or a google site instead. 2c

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID =725591

... and approaching blog sites and netlabels.

I dont doubt it's marketing power xybre, and I respect all who want to give their music for free. However, It appears to be so unregulated that its easy to abuse.
The problem I have with it is it's marketing power in combination with ease of abuse. This often results in unauthorised free downloads of my material ( and that of others ) featuring higher up the list in searches than endorsed sources ... in my case, a small independent, diy, not-for-profit label who also make good use of the little income they make in releasing material by new and obscure bands who dont want to ( or will never get the chance to ) sign for a commercial label.

I understand. Personally I'm torn. Our society is intrinsically intertwined with our economics, we need money to purchase tools to be more creative, to eat even. So I understand this. I also believe that information, and art, should be available to the public. Your business ethos is one I can agree with, and is very similar to my own: keep prices low but enough to hopefully turn a profit (or for many people I know, to simply break even).

Thanks, I will look into legaltorrents.com - from a brief look, it appears that I would deal with all the technical stuff and 'seed' it myself. That might be not worth the trouble in my position, as wetdentist pointed out (I don't even have friends who would know how to back it up).

That "Mininova Content Distribution" is still tempting, but as I understand, they are those "on the wrong side of history", yes? So I would basically act as a smoke screen for them, gotta think that over.

the Internet Archive might suit your purposes ZQ? To be honest I don't know how effective this is a distribution tool. Perhaps others here have more experience of it.

http://www.archive.org/index.php

I'd second the Archive.org website. I downloaded some old Hitchcock movies there.

By the way, you can combine both, by seeding a torrent using HTTP. This is used in a lot of public-domain movie torrents. I believe your users need an up-to-date client, tho...

Recent article in the Guardian on illegal music downloaders. They actually buy more music than most people. Counter intuitive but true. Those who buy music buy it, period. Those who illegally dowwnload wouldn't have bought it anyway, so regard it as free advertising.

Ciao!

As it's been said, a torrent will work if there are people 'seeding' it. If your PC is always on and seeding, that should do it too (if your connection is decent). If not, it's better to just upload your stuff to a site like MediaFire and give other people the link on music forums, your blog, site or whatever.

Also, using a popular torrent site like Piratebay or Mininova would potentially get you more exposure, but people would mostly still need to search for your stuff, so unless they do that, it doesn't help much.

Torrents are a good means of distribution, but generally they work better for popular (often copyrighted) stuff that has already been promoted one way or another, not for unknown artists. For the latter, try something like Soundclick or whatever is popular these days...

mininova content distribution is the way to go - i have released 7 torrents and gotten about 10,000 downloads.. downloads have slowed a lot in the past couple years though as mini has had to take down warez and such that attracted most of its users..
the huge advantage to CD is that they help you seed the torrent out - you don't have to be on all the time - they seed it forever...
its good to add torrents during the weekends - they get more exposure on the front page...
search 'noah cohn' for my torrents..