Getting to Know the Fediverse
Because the corporate world as personified by the corporate music business is predicated on milking as much money out of the participants as possible, artists that want to be fairly compensated need to find alternative sources for income. I mean, an industry the needs to keep 80% of revenues isn’t anything more than a ponzi scheme. DSPs like Spotify make from their “free” tier customers, I figure, between $.045 and .$105 per song they play in the US market. If you’re lucky, Spotify will pay you less than $.003 a song play. By my calculation, that works out to be the artist’s share of Spotify revenues is less than 6%.
A corporate shark like Bandcamp allows you to keep a decent amount of your money; the last time I checked, their cut of track and album sales was around 15% and that doesn’t include card fees, so you get to keep roughly 80% of your money. But discovery on Bandcamp is a joke. I find it almost impossible to find my catalog on Bandcamp if I go the Bandcamp.com and type in my artist name in the search box. That might explain why, in the almost 5 years I’ve been on Bandcamp, I’ve only accumulated approximately 350 plays of my music and a measly 23 followers. I get 350 plays in a day on major DSPs. It’s one reason almost 4/5 of my catalog of 103 songs isn’t on Bandcamp.
So, if the corporate sharks aren’t viable partners, what is? There are a number of contenders in what are called the fediverse.
Funkwhale is described as 'Decentralized, open source music streaming; self-hosted, browse by artist, genre; Android, iOS app compatibility. Enjoy unlimited streaming'. As an artist, you can join a pod, or you can start your own. Since you’re on a server by yourself, discovery is a problem. You’re on your own promoting your product.
Faircamp is a self-hosted resource, you build a catalog on your computer. Then you run the software to build a website including those songs in your catalog. This one of the most DIY of all options, but any money you earn is all yours.
Additional Resources
And I also found this link: https://nham.co.uk/2024/05/what-is-a-fair-music-platform/ to be a good additional resource to delve into.
By the way, this post is a work in progress, so check back for further developments.
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