John Darko
How can we make music streaming work for record labels, streaming services and artists? I was reminded of this topic again this week as I listened to indie-dance artist Tom Vek fail to convince techno producer Paul Rose (aka Scuba) as to the merits of his latest tech project – Supercollector – where the bragging rights associated with a music purchase committed to a virtual ledger (via the Blockchain) would offer sufficient end-user allure to build a new music distribution model. And I think we already know that James Blake’s Vault model won’t scale: US$5/month for every artist you like quickly adds up to a hefty sum.
So here’s my idea for a different kind of music streaming service. Think of it as a hybrid of Spotify, the iTunes store and Bandcamp — but without the downloads.
We start with the same 100 million songs found on Apple Music or Spotify but there’s an immediate twist: no monthly subscription fee. Instead, we sign up to create an account with an empty library but with access to 30-second clips of every song. We can favourite songs, albums, EPs or ‘singles’.
This is where things get interesting.
We can only stream what’s in our library. And we can only add albums, EPs or ‘singles’ to our library by purchasing them. Doing so allows us to stream that release (or offline it inside the app) in perpetuity. Our choice of streaming quality: from 320kbps lossy to hi-res lossless.
How much would it cost to buy a release?
US$1, €1 or £1 (territory depending). A flat fee no matter the streaming quality or how many songs are contained therein. This would help keep the album-as-an-art-form alive and put a stop to one-track singles.
Where does that money go?
From each purchase, the streaming service would take 20% with the rest handed off to the rights holder to split with the artist as per any contract. There would be no revenue pooling. Buying a release from a specific artist would guarantee 80% for that artist (or their rights holder), no matter how niche the artist’s appeal.
Why might this appeal to the music collector in all of us?
Listeners would start with nothing and build their own streaming libraries, just as they did with CDs, cassettes and vinyl: piecemeal and over time. Suggestions for purchases could come, as they do now, via Discover Weekly and New Release playlists but these playlists would only be streamable in full – bypassing the 30-second previews – for a limited time. If you like a particular song, you’d pony up for the full release to gain long-term streaming access.
Would this work in reality?
I’ve no clue. Perhaps Tom Vek or James Blake could school me on all the reasons why it wouldn’t.
I do know it’d be tough to put the existing streaming model’s genie back in its bottle. Change is hard when streaming access to 100m songs is (essentially) free. And perhaps 20% wouldn’t be enough for a streaming service to cover the costs of app development, file hosting and the bandwidth needed to fulfil streaming requests.
But, hey, it’s an idea — and I’m just spit-balling.
