CD Baby

CD Baby, Inc., also known as The Death of Indie and We Used To Have A Fracking Jam Room, is an on online brothel for musicians that want to pimp their audio product in what is coined an "independent online music store." Tha' Baby claims to specialize in the sale of CDs and digital music downloads from independent musicians directly to consumers. In truth, it is a pennies-from-heaven whore of the Wall Street firm Corinthian Capital Group.
While once known for its plethora of talentless artists, CD Baby has (in recent years) taken over catalogs from such luminary musicians as The Osmonds, RATT, Yngwie Malmsteen, Eddie Murphy and Tiny Tim.
CD Baby was originally incorporated under SHit Media, Inc., founded by Derek Sivers in 1997. Sivers sold CD Baby to Dick Cheney in 2008 for $22 million and rode off into the sunset with his trusty gitfiddle (while riding on a pale horse with no name.) Sivers made big hay of the sale by giving the proceeds to the Portland Musicians Union Local 99 in an arrangement that provides no musicians will ever get a paying gig in Portland ever again without being a member of the union. Sivers' employees received complimentary packages of Bacon Bits, Consolidated CDs and a cute puppy upon completion of the sale to DiscFakers.
Tha' Baby still operates out of a grimy neighbourhood in North Portland and most of the company's male employees can be found at The Viewpoint Topless Lounge on Killingsworth Street during their company mandated lunch breaks. Employees from Tha' Baby are also allowed to post their own post-apocalyptic tunage on the site for free... provided it does not criticize former VP Dick Cheney.
CD Baby also donates 25% of all it's sales to the Afghan & Iraq war efforts through an arrangement with Halliburton, Blackwater Security, and KBR wherein employees of Tha' Baby include cocaine and heroin in shipments to Baghdad or Kabul for the youth of SE Asia. 
== The Woodstock, NY days ==
Over a decade ago a rich kid named Derek had a dream. After being discouraged from running a garage-based marijuana grow by his wealthy parents, the myth known as Tha' Baby was born to proud parents Derek Sivers and Satan. One of the key factors in the formation of Tha' Baby was Sivers' rejection by a glam act that thought him too "square" to try out for their band. After this heartbreak, Sivers set out on a path to make their life a living hell by selling their CD on a site nobody would care about.
The first CD Baby website was written in arcane Latin BASIC so to be only readable by Sivers and Satan. As time progressed, however, a rift developed between the Devil and Sivers. The founder wanted to make a clean break from the Master of Darkness and tour with Greek musician Yanni. The devil had other plans and confounded Sivers' mind so that he could only write code in PHP, Ruby and SQL. The Morning Star also gave Sivers' a penchant for bad haircuts, Swedish hotties, and a knack for lying to employees.
The Devil also gave Sivers the superhuman power to use slave labor as a tool to benefit anyone but indie musicians. By hiring a handful of starving musicians in upstate NY, Sivers was able to appear as Jesus while actually under the mental and spiritual control of you-know-who! Sivers also made the business profitable by hiring trained monkeys to pack CDs into mailers. While his profits rose skyward, PETA (group) was not impressed.
After a number of years in the garage that would have been his marijuana cash-cow, Sivers moved across town to a house recently repossessed from an elderly woman. Sivers' father ran the construction company which built and sold the house to the lady in 1973. When she missed the payment, Sivers Sr. took it back and handed it over to Derek. Rumours have swirled for years about whether Sivers Sr. was also corralled by the Debbil to make the transition easier for Derek.
 
By late 1999, CD Baby had grown up and moved on to a Dell 486 PC in the front room of the house Sivers now shared with a crew of his trained monkeys. Among one of the brighter spots in this period was the arrival of John Steup as President of the company. Steup's arrival gave Sivers a chance to hang out with Jesus Christ more often and to attempt to relearn Latin. Sivers knew the Devil was on his case and wanted to relearn the high language of hell... and to incant the Destroyer Spell, freeing him from the Devil's control forever.
In 2000, CD Baby made its move to Portland, OR... a place where bright-eyed young "radicals" and musicians were plentiful. Sivers saw gold on the horizon.
== The Portland Years ==
=== The Beginnings: My Name is Ben. How can I help you? ===
 
Upon arrival in Portland, CD Baby set up shop in another Sivers family location near the PDX airport. This would prove a benefit for future employees as it provided close proximity to drugs, hookers and liquor stores in the area.
Among some of the earliest supporters of CD Baby was former President Bill Clinton. In a speech before leaving office in 2000, Clinton said:
After the glowing recommendation from Clinton, CD Baby web traffic in Tennessee, Arkansas and Germany shot up to record levels. This bump in sales allowed Sivers to finally hire humans to pack CDs for mailing. The monkeys were sold to restaurants across the Portland metro area.
=== One Last Tryst With His Black Majesty ===
In 2002, Sivers wanted out of his battle with the Devil. Calling him up in Gresham, OR, Sivers challenged Satan to a shred off for the right to be free. Anybody who has seen Crossroads knows how this story ends... thus, the deal was finally inked:
SPIRITUAL CONTRACT AND DEED
:I, Derek Sivers, having been vanquished in my guitar playing ability, 
:and for falling short in my command of Latin, do hereby grant Satan 
:my eternal soul.
:Said soul will be collected by Satan on a date future, and shall be
:traded at that time for a complete sum of $22 million (US) in currency,
:stocks, bonds, and guitar lessons.
:I, Derek Sivers also agree to provide the Lord Devil with at least
:40 able-bodied souls from which he can pluck and seduce the finest
:of that talented litter.
Signed on this day, Feb. 17, 2002.
Derek Sivers
=== Rock Star Refuge (or, "How I Paid The Bills With Music")===
As the 2000's got into full swing, many of the NW bands that had seen success in the 90's suddenly weren't able to pay on their mansions in the West Hills anymore. Enter CD Baby! After dueling with the Devil one last time in early 2002, Sivers gave up on defeating the Dark Majesty and sold his soul to the man. As part of the agreement, Satan demanded that Sivers provide at least 40 "good souls" for the plucking. Only one lucky soul, a wayfaring guitarist that subsequently relocated to Coeur D'Alene, ID, was lucky enough to escape the clutches of Sivers before it was too late and the divvying up of spirits began in Hell.
Among the musicians that worked at CD Baby during this period were former members of: Abba, Air Supply, Citizen Dick, Sex Gang Children, and Boston. Although rumours have circulated that Elliott Smith once worked at the CD Baby warehouse, this is untrue, as most of Smith's saddest songs were written about friends of his that worked there at the time.
=== 2008-Present (The Dick Cheney Years) ===
As the decade continued, Sivers constant and continued bitching at Satan about "my payoff, man... I want my 22-mil," finally got to the Prince of Darkness.
In the early hours of August 12, 2008, Satan underwent His endomorphic transformation into a representative of Corinthian Capital Group, the parent company to DiscMakers. In his new form, the rep from CCG presented Sivers with a 22-million dollar check, a pale horse, and swift kick in the ass. Sivers collected the check and rode off into the sunset. He was last seen on a beach in Central Oregon in May of 2009. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Derek Sivers should contact Team America. 
Corinthian Capital, based in New York City, is closely aligned with former Vice President Dick Cheney and his minions. As of 2010, CD Baby has become the number one importer of U.S. manufactured drugs and weapons (via discreet channels) into Iraq and Afghanistan.
==Profits==
CD Baby has a massive profit portfolio, however, the execs in NYC prefer to spend every bit of that income on Swedish hookers, cocaine and vintage Ferrante & Teicher albums. Some employees have spoken up regarding this issue and monkey retention.
==Subsidiaries==
* Hostest-With-The-Mostest-Baby
* Porn Baby
* Cheney in 2012 Baby
==See also== 
* Satan
* Music Theory
* Dick Cheney
* Nerds vs. Geeks
Category:Companies of the United States
Category:Internet