MP3.com has started a program to pay their artists for downloads--whether or not they sell albums--and the online music company's number one artist will probably earn $30,000 this month.

Los Angeles singer/songwriter Emily Richards [ tickets ] was one of the first musicians to ride the MP3.com wave, posting live piano-and-voice versions of her songs almost a year ago. Since then, she's seen six songs go to number one on the MP3.com top twenty, and 800 to 1,000 listeners are downloading her songs every day.

Last week, her tech-savvy manager got a call from MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson, who told him that under the company's new ''Payback for Playback'' program, Richards could anticipate $100 per day from her downloads. After the program ends on Nov. 30, Richards hopes to have enough income to take her four-piece band on tour, with pay, and to pay for future studio time.

There are now 31,000 mainly undiscovered artists on the MP3.com site. Under the new program, artists will compete for a cut of the $200,000 the company has earmarked for artists. Payments are made according to an undisclosed formula that MP3.com says accounts for the number of times that unique users download an artist's songs. A song has to be downloaded at least twenty times per day to qualify, and payment doesn't directly correlate to the number of downloads.

But to artists like Richards, the amorphous details of the payment system are offset by the earnings, the continued exposure and the flexibility of MP3.com's way of presenting music. She is able to post new versions of songs whenever she wants, to test new songs to see how they stand up as singles and to retain creative control of her material.

The Salt Lake City native just released a new CD on the site, ''You Give,'' comprised of ''contemporary angry pieces and mellow ones,'' she said. She has had offers from major labels, but for now, she and her manager aren't biting.

''Unless something great comes along, we're not going to take anybody. My manager is technologically-minded, and MP3.com is technologically progressive. Plus, you have control. If I don't have a good response to a song, I can pull it and it's not a big deal. You can't do that if you just produced 100,000 CDs with the song on it.''

Under the main MP3.com system, artists give away their tracks to encourage the public to buy CDs, which are produced and mailed on demand. The artist sets the cost of the disc and splits the net price with MP3.com. ''Payback for Playback,'' however, doesn't depend on CD sales, but draws its funds from the company's promotional budget.

The company stands to gain from the new system because artists will be motivated by the payments to market themselves more fiercely. MP3.com hopes that the site's page views and ad revenue will then rise. Online advertising dollars--not CD sales--account for most of the company's income.

In Richards' case, the massive snowball is already rolling, so she doesn't have to send out blanket e-mails the way other MP3.com artists started doing this week. ''Being number one keeps you there,'' she said, adding that MP3.com's editorial features about her and a small MP3.com-sponsored club tour also helped.

Still, chart placement doesn't always guarantee future success. ''I had a song [''Mary''] that I thought was good,'' she said. ''MP3.com ran a personal feature, and it went to number one. Then it fell.'' Even though it wasn't a strong single, the eclectic piece still has a place on her album, she said.

As much as Richards, a part-time accountant, thinks of the business side of her music, she doesn't neglect aesthetics. While she supports cross-linking with other MP3.com artists and is planning an MP3.com artist co-operative tour, she said that musicians have to create ''good quality music'' if they want to succeed on MP3.com.

''If it's bad, it doesn't matter how much advertising it gets.''