I have multiple platforms where I publish my music. I have become lazy about keeping with the times, but certain places has stood through the years. Personally, I still like the model of Bandcamp. There the artist can freely decide the cost, license and amount of streams before purchasing. In my case I have been quite lenient for potential listeners with my donationware CC-BY-NC-SA albums. There are a few reasons for that. Having relatively free albums is my way of paying tribute to the open source community. With some exceptions (mostly about hardware) I make my music pretty much exclusively on open source software. I want to deliver the same mode of accessibility with my music as well. With my nearly nonexistent audience it’s not much but it’s honest work.
However, I do not pretend that all of my music is 100% non-commercial. When it comes down to publishing music on major streaming platforms like Spotify, there is no non-commercial way to publish your music. An artist either needs a record company or a publisher. I am using Distrokid as a publisher. That is basically the cheapest option for an indie artist to publish music, as far as I know. It’s also worth to note that publishers don’t do any marketing for their artists as a default. That task is basically on me (and obviously I have disregarded it totally). Publishers could offer those services too but it costs of course something. In my case those services aren’t probably tailored for my kind of stuff I do, so it’s likely a hard gamble.
When I recently published Surveyor I also tried an automated tool to master the final mix. (You may compare the quality with the original master I made earlier.) I don’t believe I could ever use AI to replace my music production pipeline, but mastering is my weakness and an area that I could see easily automated without “selling my soul”. It’s not really in my personal interest to polish high quality mixes. Although, using a proprietary tool like that might be against the principle of “open source sound”, but I also admit having hopes at getting more listeners some day.
My humble initial goal is to get total >1000 streams to some of my songs, but my long term wish is to not run completely on losses (meaning: streaming income would cover its costs). But all of these are optional bonus tasks. I am aware that my hobby likely won’t get profitable ever, but that doesn’t stop me doing this. Making art is what I do, no matter how much I gain from it. Simple as that.
As music is not sold nowadays as it used to be, it makes me wonder whether my music is already kind of open sourced gift by its presence in the Internet. I could get little compensation from the streams but it’s not really very significant commercially. Nowadays music has even become less downloaded, so the concept of owning music (and thus sharing free music as well) has changed. If music streaming services keep enshittified, things might revert back as well. Who knows. Although, I don’t see myself selling CDs in any foreseeable future.
Aeroll 