Derek Sivers (born September 22, 1969[1]) is best known for being the founder and former president of CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians.
A professional musician (and circus clown) since 1987, Derek started CD Baby by accident in 1998 when he was selling his own CD on his website, and friends asked if he could sell theirs, too. CD Baby went on to become the largest seller of independent music on the web, with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients.
After he won the 2003 World Technology Award, Esquire magazine's annual "Best and Brightest" cover story said, "Derek Sivers is changing the way music is bought and sold . . . one of the last music-business folk heroes."
In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby to focus on his new ventures to benefit musicians, including his new company, MuckWork, where teams of assistants help musicians do their "uncreative dirty work". His current projects and writings are all at sivers.org.
Derek is married to Sajitha, and they reside in Singapore.[1]
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Derek Sivers bequeathed his company to a charitable trust for music education, and had them sell it. This agreement allows him to receive the minimum allowed by law for such agreement of 5% per year of the company's sale price (annually $1,100,000 pretax, based on a sale price of $22 million as reported by Sivers [2]) until death, while upon death the remainder if any will ultimately go into the trust.[2]
CD Baby