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Decentralised Music Streaming — Five Platforms Cutting Out middlemen And Giving Back Power To Artists And Fans

De•centralise me!
Coinmonks
Published in
13 min readSep 10, 2023

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Photo by Zarak Khan on Unsplash

Artists who would like to put their music on established streaming platforms such as Spotify or Apple Music, in doing so, meet with a number of unfavorable, strenuous and unnecessary processes. For example:

  • Artists must normally wait unacceptable amounts of time — sometimes 6 months or more — to receive royalties payouts
  • The royalties artists do receive for streams are variable and average a fraction of a penny per stream approaching zero if artists are on a label
  • Streaming platforms keep their music streaming databases behind closed doors making it very difficult for artists to be sure they are being paid accurately for every stream
  • Artists cannot directly upload their content to most legacy streaming services; they are forced to go through distribution middlemen who charge for their services instead
  • Legacy streaming platforms provide no avenue for direct fan>artist interactions

This means that artists — including many of the big named musicians — end up struggling to make anywhere near minimum wage from their mechanical royalties — consisting mainly of streaming nowadays. Hence a significant number of musicians have to find other avenues of income including touring or even a second job just to make a living and continue producing their art.

Over the last decade, a number of decentralised music streaming platforms have began to appear attempting to resolve many of the issues listed above. This has been possible largely due to the growing popularity and progress of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) such as blockchain and peer-to-peer networks. These streaming services seek to offer greater transparency via public, immutable ledgers, pay artists more fairly and cut out middlemen to allow more direct fan-to-artist relationships to develop.

This article briefly considers 5 such streaming platforms offering unique solutions to the existing problems both music artists and fans experience.

Table of Contents
· AUDIUS
∘ Standout Feature
∘ User Benefits
∘ Opinion
∘ Useful Information
· RESONATE
∘ Standout Feature
∘ User Benefits
∘ Opinion
∘ Useful Information
· TUNEFM
∘ Standout Feature
∘ User Benefits
∘ Opinion
∘ Useful Information
· SOUND
∘ Standout Feature
∘ User Benefits
∘ Opinion
∘ Useful Information
· NEWM
∘ Standout Feature
∘ User Benefits
∘ Opinion
∘ Useful Information
· Notable Mentions

First up, lets take a look at probably the most well-known decentralised streaming service.

Audius

Audius is a decentralised music streaming platform seeking to supplement rather than replace existing services such as Spotify, Soundcloud and Tiktok.

Currently, listeners can stream music on the platform freely and tip artists they enjoy. The top 5 most streamed tracks in any given week are rewarded in the platform’s native currency, $AUDIO. Audius also features a tiered medal system and, more recently, it has enabled artists to offer exclusive token-gated NFTs to fans.

Standout Feature

Audius abstracts all web3 elements into the background for those unfamiliar with blockchain. This allows fans and artists alike to easily sign up with just their email and yet still be interacting on a distributed network without risk of losing keys — accessible via a secure email — and so on. This makes for an experience similar to any existing streaming service.

User Benefits

Artist

  • direct audience reach
  • receive tipping
  • weekly rewards for most popular artists
  • participate in platform governance
  • free unlimited uploads
  • remix competitions

Fan

  • free streaming
  • direct messaging
  • large library
  • participate in platform governance
  • activity rewards
  • 320 BPS quality streaming
  • easy email sign up process

Opinion

Granted there are a number of things Audius does right, there are some fundamental issues holding it back. For example, Content providers and indexers — content nodes and discovery nodes — are rewarded generously in $AUDIO while content creators — the musicians — are only rewarded for their music if one of their tracks is among the weekly top 5 or by tipping. So the majority of artists go unpaid. Bot farming track listens is another unfortunate result of this model. Besides this, many users of the platform have been unable to claim their rewards, and I’ve also noticed a lack of content from some of their flagship artists — Skrillex currently has one track availble to stream. Despite all this, I still find the platform, including the mobile app, an overall good experience and I’m enjoying wading through the large catalogue of artists. Testament to this is the large reported user-base which was reported to be as high as 7 million at its peak and big name artists such as Katy Perry who have invested into the platform. I just hope they have the capabilities in terms of scalability, for example, to improve the overall model in the future.

Useful Information

Next up, let’s take a look at a lesser known streaming service that looks to have been around the longest in the decentralised space.

Resonate

Resonate is a decentralised music streaming cooperative.

The platform offers a pay to stream service in which users can become cooperative members by either signing up as an artist and uploading music or by purchasing $10 worth of streaming credits. All members have a say in the direction of the platform as a whole and put forth proposals or ideas via the dedicated forum and meetings. Seventy percent of the streaming revenue goes directly to rights holders while the remaining thirty percent goes back into the cooperative.

Standout Feature

Resonate offers a unique stream to own model where artists are paid whenever users listen to over 30 seconds of their song. The first listen costs $0.0029, with each subsequent listen doubling in price until after 9 listens, listeners own the song and can stream it freely at which point an artist will have earned around $1.50. This rewards discovery and fandom for both the artist and listener.

User Benefits

Artist

  • guaranteed payment to the artist per stream
  • automatic participation rights in the cooperative
  • low payment withdrawal threshold (about $11.50)
  • free content uploading and sign up

Fan

  • participate in the cooperative for a small fee
  • access music from more than 100 labels and independent artists
  • directly support favourite artists on the platform
  • well designed UI

Opinion

Resonate has already been around for a number of years and set much of the groundwork and philosophy needed for a fair, decentralised music platform. It features what I consider currently the best catalogue of music among this list and an interesting company setup. Sadly, reading through the comments from cooperative members including founder, Peter Harris, it seriously lacks funding and has run into a number of other issues that threaten the viability of the platform. I also have some concerns surrounding database transparency; although blockchain technology is used, data is currently processed through permissioned nodes though public nodes are planned for the future. All these problems aside, I can’t help but be glad I found this platform, and I intend to support it myself.

Useful Information

Next we move onto a streaming service with a long history and the technology to become the future streaming service of choice.

TuneFM

TuneFM is a fully-featured music ecosystem rewarding artists fairly for every stream.

The platform offers a variety of ways to listen to music including pay to listen and stream to own. Additionally, artists can promote their music to listeners who actually get paid to listen. TuneFM has included HIP 412 standard NFTs on its marketplace allowing for minting of entire albums including artwork, videos, fractionalised royalties and more all inside of a single NFT. The platform also includes direct messaging, fan/artist profiles, reviews and an upcoming metaverse — Jamfest — which will feature ongoing global virtual festivals accessible via NFT ticketing.

Standout Feature

TuneFM pays artists for every second their music is streamed. Listeners pay the equivalent of one cent per minute streamed paid directly to an artist’s non-custodial wallet. As a result, artists earn on average 10 to 100 times more for streams of their music on TuneFM compared to other platforms. To date, streaming platforms pay a fixed amount per stream whether the track length is 1 minute or 20 minutes long and pay nothing for tracks under 30 seconds long. TuneFM’s model fairly solves both problems. This is all thanks to $Jam — the token powering the ecosystem — which is able to process hundreds of thousands of transactions per second including streams, NFT minting and royalties payouts each with negligible gas fees. It is able to accomplish this as it runs on the base layer of the Hedera Hashgraph (DLT) without the need for costly, time-consuming smart contracts.

User Benefits

Artist

  • fair (10 to 100 times higher), instant payment for streamed music
  • nonrestrictive Hybrid license
  • ability to promote music
  • freely upload masters
  • cheaply mint NFTs
  • fractionalise and sell royalty rights to your music

Fan

  • share in Royalties of favorite artists
  • gain access to fan experiences
  • gain access to global music library
  • easy to set up account with non-custodial wallet
  • non-custodial wallet with all web3 aspects abstracted away

Opinion

Looking at the roadmap and recent interviews, TuneFM has a bright future set up. Its $3 million Hbar Foundation grant will soon unlock, various big name NFT drops are upcoming potentially including unreleased Michael Jackson tracks and a mobile app is set to release late summer/early Autumn 2023. Besides this, co-founder, Andrew Antar is in negotiations to onboard a global music catalogue of artists by year’s end that rivals and may eventually exceed Spotify’s — the only missing piece for me being a lack of artist/fan governance of the platform. But these are some incredible claims and will put TuneFM head and shoulders above all other streaming platforms if they are reached. And, to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are achieved given Andrew Antar’s connections. Even now, however, features such as micropayments, an advanced NFT marketplace and thousands of already onboarded artists, cement TuneFM as a solid streaming platform built for future success.

Useful Information

Next let’s consider a platform that has already helped many independent artists make a living off of their music alone.

Sound

Sound is a platform looking to increase the perceived value of the music record with a number of tools and a heavy focus on the social factor of the music experience.

The platform offers free streaming primarily through curated and user-generated playlists. Artists own their contract on Sound and are given freedom far more control over how they release their content than on other NFT platforms and streaming services.

Standout Feature

Sound focuses on providing regular NFT drops where artists decide on the number of editions to mint, set the price and decide on what benefits to include for prospective owners. Some of these benefits include direct artist messaging, the ability to attach a visible comment to the NFT replaceable only when resold and random Golden eggs which add a level of gamification. To enhance the experience further, the artist may provide a story of their journey, and the track behind a particular drop can only be listened to after the drop is complete adding an element of excitement and discovery to drops.

User Benefits

Artist

  • direct audience reach
  • ability to decide the value of your musical creations
  • access a number of easy-to-use tools for uploading your music, minting NFT collections and releasing your work to the world
  • reach an established audience of music collectors and enthusiasts

Fan

  • fan experiences
  • game mechanics
  • enjoyable free-to-stream playlists
  • beautiful user-interface

Opinion

As soon as I began using Sound, I realised every feature has been included to create a unique user-experience. And it works. The — until recently — curated catalogue of carefully selected artists including many independent and some larger names (e.g. Snoop Dog) has given the platform a distinguishable quality. And now its opening up to all artists, there is an estabilished quality for these new artists to work towards. I do have one major concern however. I have to question what is the real relationship between the NFTs on the platform and the underlying music masters? What does ownership really entail? Any track can currently be streamed for free meaning all the benefits of owning a track other than the ability to download it, seem secondary and, dare I say, somewhat of a gimmick. Why not allow artists to charge for streaming their music and allow them to share royalties with NFT holders and even fractionalise ownership of the song rights themselves as other platforms such as TuneFM or NEWM are doing. That concern aside, to date, artists have earned more than $5 million through Sound and the platform continues to receive substantial funding. This is tangible proof of the platform’s success and clearly demonstrates the value and importance of the social aspects of the music listening experience. For these reasons, I don’t see Sound going away anytime soon and look forward to what it has in store yet.

Useful Information

Lastly, we look at another active in-development project, perhaps least well-known on the list.

NEWM

NEWM is creating a music ecosystem on Cardano strongly focusing on novel forms of music ownership and streaming.

It is the only project on the list looking to implement a subscription-based streaming model to directly compete with the likes of Spotify. The platform features a live NFT marketplace with a number of drops already, and in the future the team plans to implement ticket sales and host virtual events as well as offer governance for token holders.

Standout Feature

The NEWM marketplace offers artists the ability to sell fractionalised IP rights to their masters via NFTs. These NFTs function as digital contracts and allow fractionalised secondary sale and streaming royalties to be paid out automatically to the NFT holder both on and off chain. These fractionalised rights can be further fractionalised and sold on or used as collateral to take out loans repaid by the future royalties the underlying music asset earns with interest to the lender.

User Benefits

Artist

  • easily and seamlessly fractionalise music rights
  • automatic royalty payouts on NEWM and external streaming services
  • NFT auctions
  • ability to receive secondary sales and streaming royalties from NFTs
  • NFTs to work as digital contracts with legal effect
  • take part in future governance of the platform

Fan

  • purchase fractionalised IP rights of your favourite artists
  • invest in the music you love
  • take part in future governance of the platform

Opinion

The NEWM team are clear the platform is beginning life quite centralised gradually becoming more decentralised with time as the developers await such things as a dedicated file storage system on Cardano and the blockchain’s main scaling solution, Hydra, which should allow microtransactions at scale. As anyone who follows Cardano knows, these things can take an extremely long time to fully implement and so it is actually a positive that the team have taken a long approach to development with eventual decentralisation as the end goal but a well-functioning platform being the priority in the meantime. Despite the modest amount of funding, the developers have continued to build without let up throughout the most recent bear market and maintain a relatively large, dedicated team of professionals. If you’re in it for the long haul, in my opinion, NEWM should definately be kept on your radar.

Useful Information

Notable Mentions

Following is a list of the many decentralised music streaming platforms I chose not to include in the main list. If you think any deserve a full overview, please let me know and I will consider adding it.

  • Emanate — an interesting streaming service running on Ethereum focused mainly on Elecronic music. Despite my many attempts (and I mean many) I was unable to sign in to the desktop or mobile application.
  • Emusic — A solid music subscription service running on Ethereum with a decent collection of known artists but which is stuck strongly in the past and has lacked any discernible updates for a few years.
  • Tamago — A Soundcloud-esque decentralised platform with some decent music uploads, just a bit too basic and lacking in content and updates to be considered.
  • Rocki — NFT music marketplace with free music streaming on the Binance Smart Chain. I only recently learned about this platform and need to look into it more.
  • Cyberfm — Decentralised radio where you earn their native currency FMR for every minute you listen running for a number of years now on Polygon with a strong community. I do find the revenue model and tokenomics somewhat problematic. But I do actually recommend downloading their mobile app.
  • Musicoin — Long-term project that released its own app and featured a number of independent artists but which has been inactive since the beginning of 2023 and which may have been abandoned.
  • Tunedly — A platform seeking to empower the listener to select the hits of tomorrow. I have only become aware of this recently. This has potential, but I need to do more research.
  • Opus — Appears to have more than likely been a scam. No recent activity observable and an app that doesn’t function.
  • Bitsong — An interesting music ecosystem with active development and community featuring an NFT marketplace running on its own Cosmos chain. I haven’t included this in the main list as the streaming appears limited to a number of generic radio platforms from around the world. But I am keeping my eye on this project.
  • Bitradio — Simply connects to radio stations from around the world for free. It doesn’t really deserves a mention to be honest.
  • Choon — Dissolved
  • Melodity — Offered music streaming and NFT ownership using its own chain that bridges to BSC but appears to have been abandoned in production.
  • Voise — Abandoned
  • Fenix — Abandoned

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed. Your feedback and any suggestions I missed will be much appreciated!

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Music
Streaming
Blockchain
Spotify
Decentralization

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De•centralise me!
Coinmonks

Written by De•centralise me!

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De•centralise me! is a space to discuss all things relating to open-source/technology/Blockchain/DLT/Nature as we find our place in a changing world.

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