Aralie.com, a new digital music download service, has announced it has now launched into public Beta. The DRM-free music service gives independent artists a promotional platform that they can use to sell their music. Aralie.com's pay-what-you-want business model enables music download fans the freedom to purchase songs for what they think it's worth - even $0 is acceptable.

In the next few weeks, Aralie.com plan to add further features to its website such as photo/video support, artists blogs, iPhone application, a dynamic gig calendar, and more. For the artists selling their music on Aralie.com, they will get 85% of all sales, while 13% will be taken as a service fee, and 2% goes to charity.

The danger with a business model such as this, is that it could end up as a free download service rather than giving an independent music artist a fair marketplace to sell their work.

A recent study by Parks Associates has revealed that US and Canadian consumers are increasingly using TV for their musical entertainment. The survey, which is called Digital Media Habits II, found that TV ranked alongside the MP3 player as a popular music source, and accounted for a third of the people surveyed. Two-thirds of the households questioned still used the Internet for listening to music, but it is interesting non-the-less that TV seems to be on an upward trend.

The director of research at Parks Associates, John Barett, said, "iPods are sexy, but not everybody has one. TVs are ubiquitous and increasingly capable of delivering a range of content, especially with new features like digital music delivery and place-shifting services. This is just the tip of the iceberg for TV applications."