[LAU] [OT] Future of Music Distribution (and examples?)

[Paul Davis]

I don't really make music, and I certainly don't distribute it.

But as a serious consumer of music, I don't see how you (or anyone else,
really) can do much better than Bandcamp.

I'm not interested in streaming music, and as a musician I can't really see
why you would be either, given the absurdly tiny revenue it generates.

On Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 1:45 PM Andrew A. Grathwohl <andrew at grathwohl.me>
wrote:

> Hello Linux Audio folks!
>
> I wanted to see if I could get a conversation going about the future of
> music distribution. Given that we are people who make creative works with
> free software, I figured this is as decent a place as any to discuss what
> is out there, what is possible, and what should be avoided. My own personal
> approach to distribution is detailed below, but I invite others on this
> list to share their own methods and ideas.
>
> By now, most of us are probably resigned to the fact that the music world
> will look quite a bit different going forward, compared with prior eras.
> Many musicians feel that today's points of engagement with music fail to
> provide adequate revenues, and are taking to social media to criticize
> Spotify and the ilk for not being better "stewards" of music.
>
> I largely agree with those sentiments, which is why I have been taking the
> opportunity to construct a solid home base for my music project
> <https://multipli.city>, which is fully operated on my own physical
> hardware and some AWS cloud services at a cost of $7/month. It's just a
> simple jekyll template <https://github.com/SacredData/pRoJEct-NeGYa>
> hosted on GitHub Pages. However, by publishing my music releases to my own
> jekyll page one time, I get the added benefit of also publishing to all
> desired locations on the web simultaneously, including to a podcast feed
> <https://multipli.city/podcast.xml> compatible with Apple's podcast
> network.
>
> It's weird to me that we are still trying to unit-price music in a world
> where it's cheaper and easier than ever to record, produce, and distribute
> it. I am not necessarily interested in profiting from my own musical
> endeavors, but a friend of mine is a rather popular independent
> electronic artist, who has pointed out to me that despite millions of
> annual streams, streaming services alone don't provide him anywhere near a
> livable income. In  my opinion, this shouldn't be so. There's also the
> issue of being beholden to the whims of private firms who run various
> online music services. Anyone here miss SoundCloud Groups, for example?
>
> I've begun to wonder if solutions like mine could be the foundation for a
> new kind of music distribution approach - perhaps one where musicians
> maintain podcast feeds, where monetization vectors are much more profitable
> and much more flexible for individuals to exercise without betraying their
> own values.
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