Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

by cloudfudge • 2 years ago

230 136 2 years ago

ozornin2• 2 years ago

What exactly is meant by co-ownership in your case? What exact "Ability to influence platform policies and features" would I have and how are product/business decisions made? What is the organisation structure?

The phrase "Collective ownership" sounds romantic but it can mean many things, from very good to outright scam, depending on implementation.

n-exploit11• 2 years ago

It's structured as a multi-stakeholder cooperative, from what I understand.

"Building an artist-owned platform is a complex challenge, but it’s one we are uniquely positioned to solve. Our growing coalition includes founders of Ampled, a project that helped pioneer the concept of cooperative platforms, as well as artists, music industry professionals, and specialists in cooperative law and platform economics. "

From a introductory blog post.

https://subvert.fm/blog/a-collectively-owned-bandcamp-succes...

See also: NFT delisting.

PoignardAzur• 2 years ago

Does it have a single point of control that will attract corruption if enough of us start using it?

By opposition to crypto, which attracts distributed corruption when enough people use the project?

I'm being glib, but complaining that a project not using crypto makes it inherently unsafe is pretty rich.

zepton• 2 years ago

Musicians want to accept credit card payments (you lose a lot of potential sales if you only take crypto), which requires a central party to handle payment processing.

littlestymaar• 2 years ago

Certainly plenty of poorly designed crypto things also have that point of control,

They all have. They just claim they can work against social dynamics with technology but that's a fool errand.

cloudfudge3• 2 years ago

For the record, I'm not affiliated with Subvert and in reading the docs I find their arguments about the "problem" with Bandcamp extremely weak/hypothetical and stated over and over again without any evidence. I am skeptical that they understand the economics of running a music retail site and think they might find that the cut Bandcamp takes is actually pretty fair for the value bands get. And I also don't really get how they plan to make this "collective ownership" actually work for real, but I also got really exhausted reading the doc and gave up, so maybe it's buried in there. The real reason I posted it here was hoping the HN hive mind would dissect and critique the actual plan for me. :)

geraldmcboing• 2 years ago

The problem with Bandcamp is neither hypothetical or weak. The problem is that its been sold twice, and is now owned by a company who attempted to fire anyone who tried to unionise, which is a red flag. Will bandcamp be sold again? Yes, very very likely. So that is exactly the problem.

anticorporate• 2 years ago

For example, according to an (unverified) story someone told me, a vendor to US east coast food cooperatives now controls many of them; they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and disempowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for any legal struggle than any co-op member does.

For anyone interested in learning more, this is a reference to the National Cooperative Grocers and the role of UNFI (a primary distributor for many food coops) and CDS (a cooperative grocery consulting firm). I've been pretty involved in my local grocery cooperative's governance over the past two decades. From my vantage point, there's some truth to this, but also some exaggeration (or more accurately, the pinning of other grievances, which themselves might be legitimate, on something that might not actually be related).

I don't endorse or necessarily agree with the views expressed on these two websites, but they might help give some background:

https://organizing.work/2019/04/why-do-coops-hate-unions/

http://web.archive.org/web/20210213141044/http://www.takebac...

Optimal_Persona• 2 years ago

Interesting, I have a history in West Coast food co-ops as a baker, manager, and volunteer board member. In my time of direct involvement (1997-2007) I didn't see any union busting or undue influence from UNFI, CDS or other outside entities. Of course it's been a while since then!

Additionally, I found the Carver Policy Governance model we followed effective and intriguing. FWIW "speak in one voice" on our board was a strength, meaning we worked out our differences of opinion on official matters in the board room, but were always free to voice our independent opinions as member-owners and expected to make it clear which "hat" we wore (board member vs. member-owner) when talking to members.

My quick gloss on Policy Governance - Basically you draft "Ends" that the organization follows (mission & values, etc.) and then prohibit what means the GM can take to enact them. Everything else is up to them, and if you're doing it right as a board you're paying VERY close attention to language and intentions, and chains of cause and effect (always keeping "bad GM" scenarios top of mind). The board is basically the legislature (and judiciary in times of need) to the GM's executive branch.

Maybe it's unique to the co-op I worked in - but a key part of being a board member was "Member Linkage" meaning that while the board couldn't directly enact the changes that members requested, it was 1000% our obligation to listen to them, give them space on agendas, and take these requests seriously. When I was involved, employees were encouraged to run for board seats, and AFAIK there has always been direct staff representation on the board before and after my tenure.

IANAL - But if a board member knowingly lets an outside entity change its bylaws in a way that negatively affects the co-op and its members - that is a breach of a board member's fiduciary duty for which they could be personally liable. Same - if an outside corporate stooge is installed on the board and prioritizes their outside biz' well-being over the co-op's, that would also be a breach of fiduciary duty. Also - if such a stooge ran for a board position and didn't disclose their business connection and intention to prioritize their employer's needs over the co-op's, that would be a blatantly clear conflict of interest that is grounds for immediate removal in any org with decent bylaws.

So - not calling BS on this, but something isn't quite adding up here in the articles linked.

jimbokun• 2 years ago

Sounds like the key for this entire venture succeeding is the quality of their legal counsel.

n-exploit11• 2 years ago

The public document - PLAN FOR THE ARTIST-OWNED INTERNET - zine subvert published yesterday has quite a bit of detail on the complexities and possibilities in the governance and benefit of the co-op. The team supposedly includes lawyers and economists.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1znV0Q8_jjxFTiKeT_FETTZieiXl...

javajosh• 2 years ago

they get their person in, pass bylaws empowering them and dis-empowering the board (the board usually lacking sophistication), and have deeper pockets for any legal struggle than any co-op member does.

Sounds like an opportunity for a binding arbitration clause, and hiring another co-op that performs binding arbitration.

bee_rider3• 2 years ago

A successor to bandcamp would be really nice. I think it is hard to determine if a site will become one, because it is largely about network effect—Bandcamp had enough users (customers and artists) that it was, like, worthwhile to give them your credit card info…

Totally tangential and probably revealing that I have absolutely no understanding of the music creation ecosystem and process, but is there room for, like, an online collaboration system? Like a Unity asset store for samples or something? Allow people to remix and then handle the pay out automatically when songs get bought?

colkassad• 2 years ago

There is this: https://www.kompoz.com/

It's geared more towards collaboration and there is some system to share any income that gets derived (not sure how it worked). You find someone's song page, download the existing tracks (stems) and work on your own, uploading to the collection when you are finished. I collaborated with some artists and it was fun and I met some folks. They set up payments but I never expected anything to come from that. I thought finding projects that are interesting to collaborate on was difficult. It's just a big pile of music of varying quality and genres.

pdntspa2• 2 years ago

The "Unity Asset Store" is effectively Splice

But the licensing doesn't do pay outs, with sampling you pay once and its yours to use as you see fit. As it should be, we don't need anyone else sticking their hands out.

bee_rider3• 2 years ago

In general, imo, if somebody contributes usefully to a project they should get paid in line with their contribution.

The flat rate makes sense from an era when tracking that sort of stuff was difficult, but I dunno, it seems like it ought to be possible to track this sort of stuff automatically nowadays.

gradientsrneat• 2 years ago

worthwhile to give them your credit card info

Bandcamp didn't even accept people's credit card info (maybe it's changed in recent years and they have more payment options now). They outsourced payment processing to PayPal.

Most small shopping sites in USA don't handle their own payments due to regulations.

bee_rider3• 2 years ago

I bought stuff from Bandcamp and I don’t have an active PayPal account, they must have added some options.

thenoblesunfish• 2 years ago

This is so awesome. Not because it will necessarily work or be incorruptible, but because it can be replicated.

n-exploit11• 2 years ago

They're being very open about the legal structuring too, with open source legal docs and agreements.

https://subvert.fm/changelog/

mitchitized• 2 years ago

Finally, a website that convinced me to write my own CSS overrides.

freedomben4• 2 years ago

I think this is great, but I do hope thought is being put into solving the hardest problem of all IMHO: Music Discovery

I have bought a lot on Bandcamp, but would have bought 10x more if I could just find stuff I liked. The existing system makes discovery nearly impossible unless you happen to like the stuff being mainly bought and curated or are in a lucky genre.

Discoverability is especially hard because 99% of the music people create sucks. This may not seem true if you mainly listen to "radio" and playlists, but if you ever get access to a large catalog of independent music, try picking stuff at pseudo-random and take notes. As much as I love good art (and I do), most art is not good art. You can't go on popularity because some of the great artists (especially on Bandcamp) are relatively unknown and therefore are not popular. For example, Thousand Needles in Red is a phenomenal band with great albums, and almost completely unknown. These Four Walls is similar (but at least they are on Youtube Music/Spotify/etc). I'd buy the crap out of similar albums, but discovering them is very challenging. I mainly found those two out of random luck.

Anyway I'm rambling, but I do hope you can figure out a good means for discovery. I think finding and grouping people with similar tastes is among the best ways, and also having artists that a person likes recommend other artists can be super valuable.

lancesells3• 2 years ago

That's interesting that you say discovery is hard on Bandcamp. I've actually found their blog content great at finding new artists. Their editorial staff seems to be really tuned in and articles like this make me very happy:

https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/aphex-twin-selected-ambient...

pdntspa2• 2 years ago

That's very simple...

a) Find good DJs playing music you like (YouTube is very helpful here, as is partying)

b) Listen to their sets

c) Shazam (or just trainspot) the tracks you like. (Shazam has a really nice integration with SPotify that dumps everything it IDs into a Spotify playlist)

I am a DJ and constantly on the hunt for new music, this is how I find most of it. No algorithms necessary!

ebiester• 2 years ago

That only works for a subset of music. It works well for electronica. It works less well for singer songwriters.

freedomben4• 2 years ago

Sorry for what's probably a stupid question, but how do you find DJs on Youtube? Do you literally just search for stuff like "Hard Rock DJ" and then start clicking through results?

mg• 2 years ago

I run a self-learning music discovery engine called Gnoosic:

https://www.gnoosic.com

I can confirm that when you suggest a random band to a random user, they will dislike it with over 90% probability.

I'd be interested to hear how well Gnoosic works for your musical taste.

freedomben4• 2 years ago

Neat, thank you! I'll definitely give it a shot and see how it goes.

rsolva• 2 years ago

Wow. Simple user interface, fas and it gives interesting results! It did not find two of my favorite groups, gusgus and subgud, but I added a suggestion. Bookmarking this for later use!

chx2• 2 years ago

Band level doesn't quite work. Alas, it needs to be track level. There are a lot of bands where I like a track and that's it.

My favorite example is Seven Sirens And a Silver Tear from Sirenia, a Norwegian gothic metal band. There's no metal in that. It took me a long long time before I learned this but the track is a direct descendant of the Midlight Sonata. And I was hunting for similar songs and I now keep a playlist of them -- but if you started from Sirenia you would never find any of them.

doctorpangloss• 2 years ago

What is the approach, on a concrete, technical level, that you are taking to make recommendation N, based on the 3, 4...N-1 choices?

Do you think online NNMF collaborative filtering with Spotify bands with fewer than 100,000 monthly listeners is the answer? If you had infinite resources, what would you do?

nick__m• 2 years ago

Did you install malware on my computer ;) How did it manage to predict so much of what in my collection with just 3 names ?

nxpnsv2• 2 years ago

I tried it before, and I just tried it again. It is great. I just came back from RecSys a large conference on recommender systems. Researchers and companies like Spotify, Amazon music, Deezer gave lots of presentation. However, nothing they showed were so immediately useful as this. Awesome service!

Jeff_Brown• 2 years ago

This is incredible!

I wish I could give it more bands, and see the distance (I imagine it computes one?) between each band I provided and the ones it suggests.

mike-the-mikado• 2 years ago

Some interesting suggestions. However, from a number of starting points I was pointed as "Songraes", a band that doesn't seem to rate it's own Wikipedia article. I wonder if this has been "fixed" somehow?

freedomben4• 2 years ago

Quick update: Gnoosic has helped me find a bunch of great bands. Thank you! Definitely a great tool :-)

l722• 2 years ago

Discoverability of anything outside of the main stream is always difficult.

I listen to a sub-sub-genre of an already niche sub-genre (raw black metal) where it takes A LOT of work to pick out the small amount of good from the large amount of bad. Many of these bands are NOT on any major platforms except for bandcamp.

There are a few review blogs that highlight some of the top stuff (although, most of the reviews are at the black metal level, not the sub-sub-genre), but I find my main source of discovery is bandcamp.

What I do is: 1) Follow LABELS on bandcamp that specialize solely in the music from bands I like, 2) follow other users that have a similar purchase history, 3) and of course follow your favorite bands for updates.

My biggest issue with bandcamp is that I find their notification system and wishlist to be quite lacking.

For notifications and discoverability, I take all the notification emails I get, filter them based on type (new release, new items [gear,stickers,vinyl], and general message updates) and move them into my RSS system (FreshRSS)[0]. I get new music updates every day of things I probably want to at least check out.

For wishlist management, I wrote a simple desktop app[1] that lets me rate, tag, comment, and listen to my albums from my bandcamp wishlist quickly. Anything I _might_ be interested in, I put in my wishlist, then use my app to keep track of if I like it or not. Stuff I don't like stays in my wishlist, but gets a low rating and filters to the bottom while stuff I want to purchase filters up to the top.

Don't get me wrong, you are still going to need to spend time exploring, as you aren't getting your weekly curated playlists.

   [0] https://blog.line72.net/2021/12/23/converting-bandcamp-email-updates-to-an-rss-feed/
   [1] https://line72.net/software/camp-counselor/

hedora• 2 years ago

I wonder if they'd be better off creating a collectively-owned record label. Small independent labels do still exist, and I can imagine them leveraging the discovery mechanisms built into streaming platforms, etc., and also having a store front for merchandise / physical media (which would be great for co-promoting the bands in the co-op).

n-exploit11• 2 years ago

I assume there will be some energy within the cooperative to establish some shared means of production. It seems probable.

l722• 2 years ago

They discuss this in their blog post about how additional industries could be part of this co-op: like labels, studios, housing co-ops, vinyl pressing plants, venues, professional services, and credit unions.

https://subvert.fm/blog/our-50-year-roadmap-the-mondragon-of...

fallingsquirrel• 2 years ago

Both those bands go hard and I'd never heard of either. In the spirit of your last paragraph, if you have any other favorites, I'd love to hear them!

jancsika• 2 years ago

As much as I love good art (and I do), most art is not good art.

Are you sure you're talking about "good art" and not merely "professionally mixed and mastered recordings?"

anigbrowl2• 2 years ago

This is what DJs and record labels are for. As I've pointed out many times before, the very understandable hostility of the public toward major labels that inflict inequitable terms on artists early in their career has been applied to dismiss all labels in favor of platforms. Small independent labels actually do a ton to support and build up artists outside of mainstream genres, while many (most?) platforms are as bad as major labels in their own way. Imagine if you went to the record store in the pre-internet days, and they were giving away singles or whole albums for free, but there were ads mixed in with the music and if you tried to move the needle/forward the cassette past them, they'd break your hifi.

chx2• 2 years ago

Here AI might be useful, I am not saying maroofy is perfect but it's worth a try. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34635352

It's one of the few uses where if the AI is wrong? oh well.

r1b• 2 years ago

Discoverability is especially hard because 99% of the music people create sucks

This - as a listener, quality is the hard problem. It is encouraging that the proposal affirms the value of curative functions (like labels).

As an artist, I actually don’t really care about music’s commercial problems - I’m more annoyed by the constraints on musical art objects inherent in all music platforms.

Like, experiencing art objects in a gallery hits different vs scrolling through bandcamp. The internet is, already, the gallery but it’s like we replaced all of the paintings with tiny prints, eclipsed by the placards.

The thing I would really love is a music platform that feels like a hosting platform, not a marketplace. Where a user can simultaneously act as a listener, an artist, a curator or a critic.

glompers• 2 years ago

I think I have seen folks use rateyourmusic.com to get partway there already...

The thing I would really love is a music platform that feels like a hosting platform, not a marketplace. Where a user can simultaneously act as a listener, an artist, a curator or a critic.

dr_kiszonka• 2 years ago

Spotify has a few mechanisms for discovering music and I find that they largely work for me. I also listen to interviews with random artists to get exposed to music I am not aware of.

zephyr9• 2 years ago

I'm surprised at this. I find music discovery easy. Some tips:

On Bandcamp: in addition to obviously following artists I like, I follow several fan accounts of those artists, then I can see what they buy. I also try to sample the Bandcamp album of the day.

On NTS.live I have a bunch of favourite hosts and try to listen to every show they release, and note the track listing. Too many to ever get through.

Podcasts: NPR All Songs Considered, and Resident Advisor when I can.

On Apple Music there's the algorithm. Hit or miss.

Back in the heydays of music blogs I would find a lot of great stuff on Hype Machine, but alas, I think those days are gone.

Just with these few sources I find there is far too much great new music to get through in one lifetime. Godspeed!

alisonatwork2• 2 years ago

What's wrong with discovering good art out of random luck?

I have discovered at least as much good music on Bandcamp as I did in the early years of Beatport and before that in real-life record stores. You start with a genre you like, then just flick through all the new releases. If a cover or title catches your eye, pop it in and have a listen, if you don't like it, move on to the next. Maybe you missed a bunch of good stuff because it didn't catch your eye, but who cares? The point isn't to collect every amazing piece of music ever written, it's just to buy enough music that makes you happy.

After a while you might start to build up a mental map of which labels tend to release more stuff you like so you prioritize listening to their new releases over other labels. Or you find an artist you like and follow them onto different labels. Even indie artists who self-release everything often still do collabs with other artists, so you can find connected/related stuff that way too, or look at the way they self-describe and tag their own music then search round for those keywords too.

In my opinion it's much easier to discover music now than it was in the brick and mortar days primarily because of hyperlinks and search, but also because the new releases rack doesn't get cleaned out by the early birds, records aren't held behind the counter for favorite customers etc. Not to mention Discogs is still there for more mainstream stuff to drill down on aliases, guest appearances, producers etc. Every Bandcamp Friday I end up with a full cart and dozens of open tabs and it feels like an embarrassment of riches. I wouldn't know what to do with a recommendations engine on top of that.

I am thrilled with my music collection these days, it's got everything from janky noodlings by bedroom musicians who I was perhaps the only person who they ever got a sale from, to established artists with a couple decades of releases under their belts, to weird little microscenes centered around cities or countries I'll never visit. Sure, I dug through a ton of trash to get there, sometimes checking out reams of tracks by a promising artist only to find a single gem worth tossing over a few bucks for, but now I have it, and I treasure it! I love having a personalized collection that's entirely made up of tunes that I think are awesome. It's the fulfillment of teenage me's dream. I don't think discovering 10x as much music would make it any better - on the contrary, I wouldn't have time to really focus on and appreciate it all, in which case I might as well have just put a streaming playlist on in the background.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

So, great, another place to host and sell your music. Love bandcamp. Nothing really that special about it. It rose to popularity because it didn't take that much of a cut of sales from the artists and was offering the easy ability to host all the digital files etc. What's different about this? The 'artists' will have a say on the cut that Subvert is taking? Shrug. All sounds fine and not really that complicated. It will all come down to traction and getting a lot of artists/labels to move there, and that is a crapshoot really. Especially since Bandcamp currently hasn't been impacted in any major way. That and the usual not-really-that-minor challenges of hosting/bandwidth/payment processing fees at scale.

n-exploit11• 2 years ago

You might underestimate the power games that are artist royalties agreements and the current domination by large corporates.

jtafurth• 2 years ago

The real problem with the platform I think is discoverability, and that will get affected more and more with corporate clutches.

However I do agree with your point overall, I'm struggling to see how this will not go the same path in a few years.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 2 years ago

I like it! Why aren't there more creator owned platforms?

n-exploit11• 2 years ago

I think silicon valley actually LIKES founder fiefdoms. Not really the same spirit as worker cooperatives. The cap table is the game.

FactKnower69• 2 years ago

hard for investors to get paid for other people's work when the workers own their profits :(

wavemode• 2 years ago

Edit: it's been pointed out to me that the zine actually is publicly available for free - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ra6r2zSkw7NCYNTAqP9923ValZi...

I really like the overall idea. Two thoughts I had while browsing.

From the main page:

PURCHASE ZINE

Is the only way to get a copy of the manifesto, really to purchase it (or join as a member)? How is someone supposed to even know whether they want to be involved in the project, if they aren't allowed to read the document first?

and from the Docs:

How is Subvert funded?

Unless I missed it, nothing in docs mentions the most obvious source of funding for a marketplace - a cut of revenue? Is there any plan for that?

If I were a member of such a collective, I'd rather give the collective a small cut of my revenue than have to deal with the complexity and risks (and potential loss of control) of dealing with outside investors.

n-exploit11• 2 years ago

> PURCHASE ZINE
Is the only way to get a copy of the manifesto, really to purchase it (or join as a member)? How is someone supposed to even know whether they want to be involved in the project, if they aren't allowed to read the document first?

The ZINE is publicly available: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ra6r2zSkw7NCYNTAqP9923ValZi...

FireInsight3• 2 years ago

FAQ: "Can I read the zine first?" has an email input box.

kevincox• 2 years ago

So you at least need to pay with personal information before you even know about the cause you are paying to.

slothtrop• 2 years ago

Ampwall is also a thing, a public benefit company - https://ampwall.com/

lux• 2 years ago

I make music and would be the main contact for several artists, but I'm not a label per se. Would I join separately for each, or will there be a way for each artist to be added under my account or on separate accounts? Thanks!

unnamed76ri3• 2 years ago

Listeners want the convenience of Spotify and don’t care about artists or even know what Bandcamp is, let alone something after Bandcamp. I’m an indie artist and I want things to be different but until you convince people to give up convenience for principles, projects like this won’t mean much.

4dregress6• 2 years ago

Let the shit music exist on Spotify, if you value your take control of it, throwing it into the void and prostrating yourself on social media begging people to listen to it is not doing yourself or your art justice!

unnamed76ri3• 2 years ago

Fair enough. Genuinely asking, how do people who have never heard of you find your music if not through Spotify or social media?

4dregress6• 2 years ago

The burning question I have is:

Why do artists feel the need for a platform?

The tools are out there to allow you to advertise, sell and distribute your music (I'm not talking about the distribution platforms like distrokid etc, fuck streaming, fuck social media and fuck making content whilst we're at it), why give away control over your art?

My model is this:

* Make some awesome music

* Self host it. Provide means for people to download your music (there are so many methods).

* Allow donations via reputable method

* Crowd fund for big events like creating physical releases, paying for studio time if you need to.

* Play as many gigs as you can/want to do

* Again fuck social media

You have to be dogged and self determined to work hard in order to for your art to be good, once you put the work in and get yourself out there people will want to hear more after seeing your shows.

FireInsight3• 2 years ago

Most people do not have the means to self-host it. A platform is just make an account, upload the files and cover, set the title, done. The platform might help with getting an audience as well. To self-host you need to have both the technical ability for it and pre-existing audience to use your self-hosted platform.

4dregress6• 2 years ago

Most people should try harder. Whats the point of even making music if you're gonna pay all these platforms for no one to even to listen to your music.

And then you have to compete with the major labels who are buying streams to get their artists in the big playlists.

Its a really cleaver system, you have all these services that you pay upfront and then if you actually do get any streams you get like 0.0001% of a cent.

Its a con, the only people getting paid are the platforms.

If you have to use any platform stick your music on youtube using the lowest quality mp3's and then link back to your own website.

chrislo• 2 years ago

Really exciting to see this manifesto.

There's already some existing co-operative music store/bandcamp alternative projects that are selling music and accepting new artists.

https://jam.coop is the one we are building. We launched last year in response to the sale of bandcamp and the uncertainty we felt in our communities of musicians who depend on Bandcamp for some or part of their living. In contrast to subvert we've decided to take an incremental approach. We're incubating jam inside an existing worker co-operative, building the features that our users need, and working towards an "exit to community" where jam will become a multi-stakeholder co-op owned by artists and workers.

I'm also familiar with mirlo and ampwall who are working on similar projects.

orblivion• 2 years ago

I hope Subvert has thought about making a Mastodon account in addition to X. I would guess a lot of the cooperative minded people will be on there.

Subvert – Collectively owned music marketplace

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