• NY Times, Monday, January 9, 2006 10:15 AM

A new music service called The Orchard deploys a strategy of trying to exploit an old inefficiency in the music business: instead of trying to sell thousands of copies of a few hundred albums--the way major record labels have been doing for years--the music distributor is seeking to sell a few hundred copies to several thousand consumers. The Orchard buys music from small independent labels and then resells them to online music services like iTunes, Napster, and Yahoo! Music. Online music stores have ushered in a massive change in the music business, giving consumers unprecedented choice and the freedom to buy large volumes of individual songs instead of albums. So far, the Orchard is banking on international pop music: it has made deals to sell 650,000 tracks from 72 countries to its music store partners and a few ringtone outlets.

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