Executive Summary

Big tech streaming services have a lot of influence on how music is made: music must be extremely attention catching and likeable by the general public if it wants to be pushed out by the algorithm. Contrasting with that, we think that music should regain its freedom, and artists should be able to make a career out of their music, even out of a small and loyal fanbase. To solve this problem we have 2 major propositions: a world map where users can discover music while also having the possibility to filter by subgenre (this will help artists grow a local fanbase much quicker) and curator-centric recommendations. The latter meaning that curators will be incentivised to make good playlists so that users follow them and discover new and meaningful music.

Introduction

We are in an ongoing crisis: terrible streaming revenue, AI bands, algorithms that control almost all recommendations, etc… As a consequence, many artists have to give up their true identity to play the algorithm game. Logically, this does not lead to any good outcomes; music is becoming boring, soulless and exclusively attention grabbing. But it's not the artist's fault, and as many say, blame the game not the players. That is why in this paper we will discuss our solutions in detail and also respond to the frequent questions that arise when presenting such a disruptive project. We will start by explaining why we will be a more appealing alternative to streaming platforms and then describe our business project, which is key, even if this project is born from a philanthropic spirit.

Why we will be a very appealing alternative

Streaming platforms nowadays are focused on maximising the retention of users in their platforms, so they can make more profit with ads. On top of that, paid subscriptions have rapidly been increasing their prices in these last few years, becoming way too expensive for the average user. So, one may be inclined to think that as these big tech companies gain so much money, they pay their artists well, as they are the absolute building stone of their platform. But the disappointing answer is no. They do not. It really seems that everybody loses but shareholders. With this in mind, a free to use and artist supportive platform becomes the ideal option. Furthermore, it will also rely on a more human recommendation system, with innovative features that will make the discovery of new music fun and exciting again, not based on retention focused algorithms, but more on the actual quality of music.

Key Features

The first feature is the “Music Globe”. Thanks to the interactive map, users will be able to search music by location, be it a continent or a region in a country, all while filtering by genre or subgenre tags. This will facilitate local artists to be discovered by the people from their city, giving them great help whenever they start their music career, and if they get a big enough following, they can rapidly start doing live shows as they will be known by their local scene. In addition, “discovery badges” will be later added, which will reward users for actively discovering artists. This will also give small and upcoming artists more opportunities. The second feature is the “Valorisation of Curators”. To allow more organic music discovery (and stop the big editorial pay-to-enter playlists), users can become curators themselves. This way, if a user finds a knowledgeable curator with their same taste, they can follow the curator and discover new relevant music. To incentivise curators to make great playlists and build a large following, they will get a small share of an artist's sales if the user that bought from the artist discovered them thanks to the curator. In top of that, we have many more ideas for the future of the platform, but for now we will put our focus on both of the above, as we want these features to be robust and of true quality.

Our business plan

Thanks to all the discovery features that help artists find their fanbase, users will be able to directly support their favourite musicians in two ways: subscribing for exclusive content, and buying merch or concert tickets. In every sale, Curatunes will take a cut to pay for the server costs and maintenance*. During the early stages of the project, the servers will be paid by the team directly, so donations are very welcome.

*this is the Bandcamp business model (for them, consistently profitable since 2012)

Frequent questions

Will we get investors? If we are able to maintain the project on our own platform earnings, we will not. Otherwise, we will have to look at alternatives, because realising the project and making a real change is the most important thing to us. That is why donations will be key in the earlier stages.

How will we deal with AI content? This is a very difficult question for every platform. Our temporary solution is (meanwhile the platform remains relatively small) to manually flag AI content. As we do not yet have a robust AI-detection technology, like Deezer for example, this will be our answer for now.

There are already other similar platforms, what will make Curatunes successful? Our attention to detail and user interface will be outstanding, this makes a lot of a bigger difference than cool features. Also, other similar projects are not targeted to the mainstream, meanwhile we will do so, so that our project makes a real and global change.

Conclusion

Curatunes represents a new paradigm in music discovery and artist support. By combining innovative technology with a commitment to fairness and creativity, we aim to reshape the music industry for the better.