PATRONTAPE - A COMMUNITY MUSIC STREAMING PLATFORM
Patrontape is a not-for-profit collective* with a mission to build a streaming service founded on the values of community, creativity and fairness at the core of independent and grassroots music scenes.
For listeners, we offer a pay-as-you-feel subscription to access all the music on the platform, with each monthly payment distributed to artists proportional to the time spent listening to their music.
For artists and labels, we offer free and unmediated uploads to the platform with direct revenue payments, and the ability to set splits on songs between multiple artist & label accounts.
REVENUE MODEL
Here is an example of how subscriptions are distributed on patrontape:
The minimum subscription is currently £3 and we retain a 20% share to fund the platform and keep the mainframe juiced.
Listeners can make one-off payments too, to show support to individual releases they love and build their collection.
WHY THIS MODEL
There are many models which may offer a fairer deal for artists - from simply increasing subscription price to setting a fixed payment per stream. We have prioritised a flexible model which is community-led and an affordable addition to listeners' existing monthly music spend.
Our £3 minimum can be cheaper than other subscriptions, but it's important to note that artists on mainstream platforms are competing for a share of total streams in a vast ecosystem, and between streaming fraud and paid exposure on those platforms, it's a steep uphill struggle.
Patrontape is a specialist space for independent labels and artists, and our pay-as-you-feel system tracking subscription shares to the second means that even a moderate number of dedicated listeners paying a few pounds here can amount to the equivalent of many thousands of streams on those platforms.
We acknowledge early adopters are supporting a work in progress project, and we expect to see subscriptions increase as the platform grows - tools like Bandcamp, Patreon and Kickstarter have proven that communities are motivated in funding artists' work when offered the flexibility and agency to do so.
COMMUNITY & DISCOVERABILITY
From the many conversations we have with artists and music fans while working on patrontape, we've learned that our ambitions need to go beyond the revenue model.
Building a platform which is not beholden to the vested interests of shareholders, advertisers and major labels presents an opportunity to rethink how we interact with music streaming.
We want to put existing music communites at the center of our apps, maximise opportunities to curate collectively, and foster active and varied listening, rather than blackbox algorithms which are weighted against the obscure.
TECH
Behind the scenes patrontape audio is hosted on IPFS, a decentralized data store, and our long term goal is to serve all audio to listeners through a distributed network of peers.
We're avoiding tie-ins wherever possible with tech monopolies and third parties whose actions contrast with the strong values independent musicians should not be forced to compromise.
We aim to be fully transparent on the inner workings of the platform and consult members directly on any impactful technical decisions.
TERMS & FURTHER INFO
You can find T&Cs for Uploaders here, part of our community site.
JOIN US!
We do our organising on a discord server - say hi, we'd love to hear from you!
Drop us an email on [email protected] with any questions or contributions.
* We are in the process of incorporating as a cooperative! To get involved, shout us on discord.