Music as Shareware in the Digital Age

A guest post this week from Crunchysteve. I want this community to be a place where new connections are made and opportunities found. Perhaps you’re the person Steve is looking for. Mary x

We’d all like to be paid for our music. You know, we worked hard for the money. But, as independents… what money?!

Playing pubs in northern Tasmania in the 80s, my band made a great side hustle, selling cassette albums from a briefcase, side stage, between sets. We sometimes made more than our gig fee! In the 90s, I used a lot of “shareware” computer software, because it was more affordable than packaged software. Technology is now more accessible than it ever was and I suggest “shareware music” might be the solution to independent music’s struggle to survive.

Modern music is focused on record label profits, not on artists rising from a fan base, Mary speaks of this frequently. Independents struggle to be found – they're even downplayed in the rankings by the major streamers. This model locks up culture and makes everybody beg, independent artists as well as the fans.

I want to see a tool that allows artists to encode music inside a secure, encrypted applet. The artist would use a studio app to encode their masters into into album applets, the encrypted music playable only from that applet, in an order decided by the artist. The applet could be shared but not the individual tracks. This applet would not be compatible with music player software or hardware, only phones and desktops. The app would be able decrypt the music files to their device’s filesystem.

The studio application could encode any files to an applet: album art, ebooks. Some tunes might be free, if you buy the whole album. The artist would be in control of what they charge for because, like you’re in control with Ableton or Pro Tools when making music, this application would give you complete control over what you sell, what you give away and what you include to incentivise your audience to pay for your art. Artists could include any file, provided it doesn't have any existing DRM.

If the audience want to make playlists of their fave tunes from this kind of digital album, then they pay the artist a preset price, per track or discount for the whole album, from within the app with all the standard payment backends included in the studio app at compile time. In the 90s, we called this “shareware” and it works for independent developers. It’s “leaky” but you still see a payday.

Share the applet with anybody. The applet is free to share and listen to. You just don’t get the files to put into Your preferred player. Yeah, it’s a bit “leaky”, some will share files, but don’t let imperfect be the enemy of good! Any modern app developer could write it. Normal backends for payment, fan club, etc.

I can’t code, or I’d be doing this! I have met musicians who were coders. I’m almost certain that some of these might be fans of Mary’s and able to write this app. If you can, you may just save the arts.

Cheers,

“Crunchysteve.”

(“Crunchy” shares a real name with a famous bassist, so never uses his real name online anymore. He’s a lifetime journeyman pub rock bassist and guitarist from Launceston, Australia, now living in Melbourne. His claims to “fame” are Cryptic Posters, (Launceston Australia), The Breed (Hobart, Australia), The Collectables (Melbourne Australia) and Secrets of The Hand (Melbourne Australia) and despite having played many gigs, you have probably never heard of any of these acts, even if you come from those places. DIY forever!)

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