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

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 &lt;andrew(a)grathwohl.me&gt; 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. > _______________________________________________ > Linux-audio-user mailing list > Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org > https://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user >