Bradley, Interesting thoughts. I tend to believe that record labels will be phased out of the digital environment as unnecessary intermediaries. Today, what appears to be taking their place is the role of online distributors of music such as itunes, amazon, etc. I am not sure for how long this sort of intermediary will continue to thrive, but I think that for the time being, artists are interested in distributing their music through these major channels. In this context, I found this site (http://www.tunecore.com/) particularly interesting for "artists without labels" as it allows them to reach the aforementioned channels, and simultaneously retain all rights and profits to their work.

-- NikolaosVolanis - 05 Dec 2009