What Is The Weed System?

Weed is a filesharing system, a download system, a viral marketing system....all these things and more. Fundamentally how it works is that you, as a listener, sign up to Weed and receive the necessary software. The Weed system does not currently work on Mac...bummer. But they are promising to do a Mac version. If you operate exclusively off a Mac, there is currently no point to signing up to Weed. Once you sign up, you can play Weed tracks you have downloaded. The tracks are essentially in .wma (Windows Media) format but obviously with a proprietary element that requires the Weed software. You can play the tracks three times for free. After that if you want to keep them you have to pay for them. (You have to do this via PayPal...) So far, the idea is pretty much like a legal download service like iTunes. However, there's a twist...because the files depend upon the Weed software, you can legally distribute the files as widely and by whatever means you wish. You can give them to your friends...obviously, they'll have to sign up to Weed to play them. You can distribute them over KaZaa, Gnutella, BitTorrent, whatever...You could even burn them to CD and give them away. In other words, this distribution method taps into the potential of file sharing and peer to peer networks.

There's a further twist. The money for the track is distributed like this. The artist always receives 50% of each sale. The person (or distributor) who gave you the file gets 20%, the person who shared the file with that person gets 10%, and the person who shared the file with that person gets 5% of the sale price. Weed receives the final 15%. So fans or listeners have a financial incentive to become distributors and marketers of sorts. So this is the viral marketing element.

Once you've purchased tracks, you can burn them to CD, listen on your computer, load them onto an iPod, etc. (You have to convert them to MP3 to load them to an iPod). Obviously, at this point, all the rules regarding copyright kick in. From that point, the tracks are just like any other tracks you buy on a CD etc.

One final point: read the Participant Agreement carefully when you sign up- it contains some important information.

So here's where to get the full information: www.weedshare.com This is the central site for Weed. See also: How Weed Works and FAQ.

There are many Weed distribution sites. There's a list on the Weed Site:Weed Music Stores

We'll give special mention to this Australian based Weed site: Mazar.com

If you can't wait to get started downloading Weed tracks here's a suggestion: Pangolin Band - TRB