There's an interesting discussion brewing over on James Brausch's blog.

He sells one of his CD products through CDBaby.com which is a website that caters to independent artists. They've been running a contest this month for the top selling CD and James has been promoting the heck out of his Life Management 101 product to win the contest.

Well, he's found some seeming inconsistencies with the way CDBaby is operating the contest and he has asked for feedback on how to handle the problem. Should he sue them? Report them to the FTC? Ignore it and move on?

I think there are two sides to the coin. On one hand, is it right to ignore it and move on? After all, if they've wronged James it stands to reason that they would do the same thing to someone else in the future.

On the other hand, is it really worth the time, effort and emotional cost to fight this battle. Is that the hill you want to die on?

Personally, I wouldn't fight it. I don't have the resources to dedicate on that front right now.

However, if I was in a position to fight the battle (which James may be, I don't know for sure) I would take the following steps:

1. Start a competing business to CDBaby.com
2. Use my experience with their contest as the basis for my story - I started this business because of the dishonesty of existing services, everything is set up transparently for the artists from the get-go, etc.

   Having dealt with CDBaby as an artist, James knows what is lacking in their system and can address those things in the story.

3. Outsource the building of the site, the back-end software, the CD manufacturing, etc.
4. Market the heck out of my site. With James' skills, I have little doubt he could outmarket CDBaby with no problem.
5. Put those same marketing skills to work for the artists who sign up with the service. After all, most of the artists are probably not great marketers - their strength is in their art.

   I suspect James is one of the few artists on CDBaby (maybe the only one) who actually knows how to increase his sales the way he has done this month in his efforts to win the contest. I'm sure any artist would be very interested if part of the offer was to help them create large increases in sales on short notice.

6. Outsource the management and maintenance of the website so there was as little input as needed from me. Or just sell the whole thing once it's up and running and has enough of a track record.

That would be a considerable amount of work, but I think it would be a reachable goal. And I would do it whether or not they decided to award the contest to James. The fact that they decide to award it to the proper person doesn't change the fact that the problems he's had happened in the first place.

It's something to keep in mind when you're dealing with customers. If you tick the wrong person off, you might just find yourself neck deep in competition that knows how to outmaneuver you. The internet makes that leap a lot more reachable than traditional bricks & mortar businesses.

And if nothing else, you might find yourself getting bad press on many different blogs when that customer you annoyed asks for feedback about the problem they had with your company