Channel download options / funding models for creators

nerveplant

yoo funkwhale community

I just started my own channel on a server and uploaded a track I made many years ago to test it out...

I noticed that, as a listener, there's an option to download all tracks that I come across in the pod's public libraries. (I don't know if this option extends to tracks in other pods' public libraries as well?)

As an artist with a channel - is it possible to turn the download option on or off on the tracks that you upload? Or to make downloads possible for only certain servers/users? If not, would this be something that developers would consider or is it antithetical to Funkwhale as a project?

The reason I ask is related to the second part of the title of this post - funding models for creators. The second aim of Funkwhale on the code of conduct is to explore and work on funding models for creators... are there any projects currently on the go to this end?

I thought that the option to turn downloads on or off may be beneficial for creators and potential funding models - because it might mean that artists could grant access to a download only to people/servers who are financially supporting them?

Whereas streaming alone isn't very valuable to non-major-label music creators (e.g. many are happy to upload their music to soundcloud to stream for free, they hardly receive anything from spotify & other DSPs) downloads are still valuable - as Bandcamp has shown.

gcrk

Hi @nerveplant !

Well, we could hide the download button, but we cannot prevent users from getting the audio file. We serve all audio files without DRM, which is an ethical decision and wont be changed. So everyone who is able to listen to the music is technically also able to download it. We can hide the button to make it less easy, but if you really wont to, you can still get the audio files.

All these funding ideas are something I would love to work on, but with Agate stepping down we were quite busy to ensure the community and the project stays alive. There is https://retribute.me/, which was built and is run by the Funkwhale Collective. The idea is, that you listen to all your music, for free, and check retribute from time to time to fund the artists you are consuming content from. We hadn't any time to think about ways to improve this or work on it, but it might be a good starting point for further thinking.

nerveplant

Thanks for linking to retribute.me - I hadn't come across that before and it seems like a good tool. It's a lot more honest and direct than conventional streaming. I can imagine drawbacks to a purely donation-based model for artists, but it does fit with the overall Funkwhale ethos as far as I can tell.

I imagined that you may have all been too busy to work on the funding ideas recently. Big respect to you all for keeping the project and community going in this handover period.