Freeing artists from addictive social media: Fedi broadcast idea
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I feel strongly that artists should NOT have to use social media, for their work to be seen and heard.
Even apps like Mastodon have inherited “dark patterns” from the likes of Twitter and Instagram. This is via technological design (eg, follower/following model, engagement stats), or socially (eg, ragebaiting or influencer behaviour).
So what’s the alternative?
I think those of us who can still actually enjoy social media should be consciously creating “megaphones”: sharing artists’ work to large networks of people. At the moment, ironically, this probably looks like building the following of a social media account!
Examples of this, past and present:
- Radio Free Fedi
- NHAM
- In general, music radio and TV
Then, while under capitalism, we also have to think about how the artist can be compensated for their work. Radio and TV have dealt with this with payments to performing & mechanical and rights societies, and publishers/publishing collection agencies. This is then distributed to the songwriters and performers whose works are played.
Should we be thinking about getting funding for a Fedi broadcasting license?
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I feel strongly that artists should NOT have to use social media, for their work to be seen and heard.
Even apps like Mastodon have inherited “dark patterns” from the likes of Twitter and Instagram. This is via technological design (eg, follower/following model, engagement stats), or socially (eg, ragebaiting or influencer behaviour).
So what’s the alternative?
I think those of us who can still actually enjoy social media should be consciously creating “megaphones”: sharing artists’ work to large networks of people. At the moment, ironically, this probably looks like building the following of a social media account!
Examples of this, past and present:
- Radio Free Fedi
- NHAM
- In general, music radio and TV
Then, while under capitalism, we also have to think about how the artist can be compensated for their work. Radio and TV have dealt with this with payments to performing & mechanical and rights societies, and publishers/publishing collection agencies. This is then distributed to the songwriters and performers whose works are played.
Should we be thinking about getting funding for a Fedi broadcasting license?
Possibly a daft question, but in the sense that Fedi broadcasts would be registrable with PROs?
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Possibly a daft question, but in the sense that Fedi broadcasts would be registrable with PROs?
Oh not all of Fedi for sure, it’s too expensive — I remember a similar convo happening years ago with Irish blogs vs IMRO (Irish PRS).
Was more thinking ahead, a possible new model for radio-like functionality, that could opt into paying artists that way.
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Oh not all of Fedi for sure, it’s too expensive — I remember a similar convo happening years ago with Irish blogs vs IMRO (Irish PRS).
Was more thinking ahead, a possible new model for radio-like functionality, that could opt into paying artists that way.
Sounds like a really great idea! I so need to read up on how all this stuff works again. Let us know if we can do anything to help!
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I feel strongly that artists should NOT have to use social media, for their work to be seen and heard.
Even apps like Mastodon have inherited “dark patterns” from the likes of Twitter and Instagram. This is via technological design (eg, follower/following model, engagement stats), or socially (eg, ragebaiting or influencer behaviour).
So what’s the alternative?
I think those of us who can still actually enjoy social media should be consciously creating “megaphones”: sharing artists’ work to large networks of people. At the moment, ironically, this probably looks like building the following of a social media account!
Examples of this, past and present:
- Radio Free Fedi
- NHAM
- In general, music radio and TV
Then, while under capitalism, we also have to think about how the artist can be compensated for their work. Radio and TV have dealt with this with payments to performing & mechanical and rights societies, and publishers/publishing collection agencies. This is then distributed to the songwriters and performers whose works are played.
Should we be thinking about getting funding for a Fedi broadcasting license?
Ah, it’s a bit more of a long term idea, not for this funding round I’d say… but just wanted to put it out there!
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I feel strongly that artists should NOT have to use social media, for their work to be seen and heard.
Even apps like Mastodon have inherited “dark patterns” from the likes of Twitter and Instagram. This is via technological design (eg, follower/following model, engagement stats), or socially (eg, ragebaiting or influencer behaviour).
So what’s the alternative?
I think those of us who can still actually enjoy social media should be consciously creating “megaphones”: sharing artists’ work to large networks of people. At the moment, ironically, this probably looks like building the following of a social media account!
Examples of this, past and present:
- Radio Free Fedi
- NHAM
- In general, music radio and TV
Then, while under capitalism, we also have to think about how the artist can be compensated for their work. Radio and TV have dealt with this with payments to performing & mechanical and rights societies, and publishers/publishing collection agencies. This is then distributed to the songwriters and performers whose works are played.
Should we be thinking about getting funding for a Fedi broadcasting license?
It's certainly a question worth exploring. The CC community has been exploring the tension between universal access and fair renumeration since the turn of the millennium, and the software freedom movements for 20 years before that. So luckily we don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Some facts that I think are worth acknowledging as a basis for any discussion along these lines;
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The Streisand Principle is a thing (as John Gilmore famously said, "the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it").
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This also applies to attempts to keep people from disseminating music and other media online, even before it started being born digital.
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The RIAA, MPAA and other industry consortia invested in massive warchests for fighting "piracy" (unlicensed fan distribution). They failed, and it blew up in their faces quite spectacularly, just as it did when McVomits when they sued London Greenpeace for libel.
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Which is why they switched strategy to licensing their media to low-friction platforms. Where fans can access it for a more reasonable fee than $1 per MP3 downloaded. Side note: the iTunes approach failed for the same reason all micropayments fail; people hate being nickel-and-dimed
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Any system for getting audiences to pay artists for online distribution must start with the assumption that
a) it is optional, and always will be
b) we want we want to support artists (when we can afford to)
c) it's the predatory intermediaries pirates are avoiding paying, not the artists
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It's certainly a question worth exploring. The CC community has been exploring the tension between universal access and fair renumeration since the turn of the millennium, and the software freedom movements for 20 years before that. So luckily we don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Some facts that I think are worth acknowledging as a basis for any discussion along these lines;
-
The Streisand Principle is a thing (as John Gilmore famously said, "the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it").
-
This also applies to attempts to keep people from disseminating music and other media online, even before it started being born digital.
-
The RIAA, MPAA and other industry consortia invested in massive warchests for fighting "piracy" (unlicensed fan distribution). They failed, and it blew up in their faces quite spectacularly, just as it did when McVomits when they sued London Greenpeace for libel.
-
Which is why they switched strategy to licensing their media to low-friction platforms. Where fans can access it for a more reasonable fee than $1 per MP3 downloaded. Side note: the iTunes approach failed for the same reason all micropayments fail; people hate being nickel-and-dimed
-
Any system for getting audiences to pay artists for online distribution must start with the assumption that
a) it is optional, and always will be
b) we want we want to support artists (when we can afford to)
c) it's the predatory intermediaries pirates are avoiding paying, not the artists
The point is, with this “radio” model: the broadcaster pays, not the audience. So, in the case of the UK:
- a broadcaster would pay PPL and PRS something like £200 per year, each
- report what music we used
- PPL pay the people who made the recordings, and PRS pays the songwriters
- PRS and PPL will arrange to pay international musicians from their own countries’ rights societies
We might be able to kick this process off with getting a funding body to cover these licenses for 1-2 years. Then, maybe look at an Opencollective for donations to keep the thing running.
The alternative is to do like Radio Free Fedi did, or Bandwagon/Indie Beat does: each musician’s work is broadcast “with permission”. So the radio is still fantastic for discovery — but artists don’t get paid as they do with regular radio.
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-
The point is, with this “radio” model: the broadcaster pays, not the audience. So, in the case of the UK:
- a broadcaster would pay PPL and PRS something like £200 per year, each
- report what music we used
- PPL pay the people who made the recordings, and PRS pays the songwriters
- PRS and PPL will arrange to pay international musicians from their own countries’ rights societies
We might be able to kick this process off with getting a funding body to cover these licenses for 1-2 years. Then, maybe look at an Opencollective for donations to keep the thing running.
The alternative is to do like Radio Free Fedi did, or Bandwagon/Indie Beat does: each musician’s work is broadcast “with permission”. So the radio is still fantastic for discovery — but artists don’t get paid as they do with regular radio.
And more and more, I’m thinking I should include this idea in our present funding application round lol
But maybe keep it separate from existing Fedi radios, so they can continue to operate as they do?
It does generate a fair bit of extra admin though, so the more people who wanna help out the better!
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And more and more, I’m thinking I should include this idea in our present funding application round lol
But maybe keep it separate from existing Fedi radios, so they can continue to operate as they do?
It does generate a fair bit of extra admin though, so the more people who wanna help out the better!
And yeah, I do get the vibe @strypey about preferring to sidestep industry bodies. Ideally we wouldn’t need any of this. But we are all living under capitalism with no way to escape it, for now. Musicians and music fans have bank accounts and jobs and paypals and all sorts of not-ideal workarounds, to deal with the fact we need money for basic survival.
So, some alternatives to using something like the PRS/PPL thing:
- continue using CC music only, or opt-in models for broadcast — with artists hopefully receiving individual donations to support their work
- Invent our own micropayment scheme, get payment details for all artists separately
Both of these require some kind of payment intermediary. So I reckon the PRS/PPL approach is just another way to do it — where most working musicians would already be aware of it, and have their bank details all set up already. AND Peter Thiel or whoever doesn’t get a cut of every payment! Bonus
-
And yeah, I do get the vibe @strypey about preferring to sidestep industry bodies. Ideally we wouldn’t need any of this. But we are all living under capitalism with no way to escape it, for now. Musicians and music fans have bank accounts and jobs and paypals and all sorts of not-ideal workarounds, to deal with the fact we need money for basic survival.
So, some alternatives to using something like the PRS/PPL thing:
- continue using CC music only, or opt-in models for broadcast — with artists hopefully receiving individual donations to support their work
- Invent our own micropayment scheme, get payment details for all artists separately
Both of these require some kind of payment intermediary. So I reckon the PRS/PPL approach is just another way to do it — where most working musicians would already be aware of it, and have their bank details all set up already. AND Peter Thiel or whoever doesn’t get a cut of every payment! Bonus
Thank you for calling out that Fediverse social media is still social media, and this comes always with trade offs.
So... in the old days of music creation, "all you needed" was a meeting place where interesting artists would get together and share. Could be a music club, a magazine, a label... First they met, others would join, and they would figure the next steps after meeting, creating and sharing music.
Is it possible that we are putting too much emphasis in software architecture and tech and too little on actually choosing a place (online) and call it our home, our shared studio? Look at the Bonkwave thing, their made... a hashtag their home and you have what looks like a fun and thriving community now.
CC music makes prototyping and testing easier, because money and restrictions to play and share don't play an important role. Once some good exists for the CC music use case, and a first user base exists, building the features for money and restrictive licenses should be easier. But they should be in the roadmap of the open source project from the start, so nobody feels cheated, enshittified down the line.
