I'm torn on the intellectual property debate, so will stay out of it. (Except to add an aside about the Performing Rights Society that cannot comprehend to concept of a traditional song. All songs must have owners, so anyone singing any song in public is committing a sin - even if it's a traditional song written by who knows who 300 years ago. Grr!)

Anyway, re. bands getting known on the Net... I seem to remember reading about some girl who'd got into the charts after doing music broadcasts from her own bedroom, or something. It got into a lot of papers. But then it was revealed that she already had a record deal, and this was all the record label's idea of a publicity campaign. Something like that. I could be misremembering it, though.