which online stores to buy international music? Options

[bigidiot]

Here's a slightly OT question, but one I haven't the foggiest clue about where to get the answer.

I'm an American lover of music who is interested in buying legally music from other countries. How do I know which CD/online music stores are legit and actually benefit the artist? I'm very cost-conscious and prefer indie music anyway, so the types of international music for sale on Amazon/itunes tends to be from the bigger labels. Suppose I wanted to buy music from Pakistan/Ukraine/China/Brazil/Chad. What's the best way to identify which labels or online stories are authorized to sell them? Perhaps all I need is a list of the best known online music stores for each region (Yesasia.com, etc).

Maybe what I need is a set of guidelines about which places online are good to purchase from and which are bad?

Anybody have ideas about where to get started? Thanks.

[slks]

In the Internet age, national boundaries are becoming less distinct, especially in the realm of music. One of the things that's lead to a lot of interesting music lately is the fact that national boundaries don't matter so much anymore - an artist from Chad or Brazil publishing his music online has exactly the same availability as an artist from, say, the UK. It's not like a few decades ago where he would need to be "found" in a remote location by a talent scout, tape recordings needing to be copied and shipped out across the world, etc. Country-specific or "world music" stores/publishers have little function anymore. Essentially, all music is now world music. Geography is no longer relevant. The best online site to find new music from Country X would theoretically also be the best site to find new music from Country Y.

If what you're looking for is pre-internet or traditional music from a specific culture, there may be sites that specialize in that. But sites like Bandcamp et al allow anyone to publish music there. So, on those types of sites, there should be a proportional representation of all styles - unless artists in a particular style are simply choosing not to publish there.