Thursday, January 16th, 2025
Are We Amused?
Summary: in the near future, my music may not be everywhere it used to be. Have you hearted one of my songs? Have you put my music in a playlist? It might disappear.
I got some bad news yesterday. I hate it when this kind of thing happens, but it's just become a regular occurrence lately in technology so I guess I have to accept it.
I received notice yesterday that the distribution company I use, named "Amuse.io" are increasing the amount they deduct from my streaming royalties. Instead of zero, they're now keeping twenty-five percent each month for themselves.
I use two companies to get my music on iTunes, Spotify, and the rest: DistroKid and Amuse. (Actually I also have used CDBaby, but that was when people were still riding horses everywhere, and making their own butter). I started using Amuse because it was free, and they promised to never take my music down, even after I die. This is in contrast to DistroKid who charges me each year to keep my music on the various platforms.
I would like my music to be a blessing to future generations, and so I jumped onboard!
Now, I don't make very much money through Amuse—it's usually about $40.00 a month—so maybe you're thinking $10 a month is no big deal. But it's the principle of the thing that bothers me. When I signed up seven or eight years ago, they promised to be free forever. I suppose that wasn't a very good business model, and I should have suspected it wouldn't last. “If it seems to be too good to be true...”
As a result, I've decided to take all my music down, to leave them as my distributor, and instead upload everything through DistroKid. At least Distrokid doesn't keep any of my royalties.
Have you ever noticed how many companies build their business by taking advantage of musicians?
So please, find my new releases. As an example, a psalm-song will now be titled, “The Two Ways (Psalm 1)” instead of simply “Psalm 1.” Put the ones you love in playlists, share them with people, add them to your library, heart them, leave comments - all the things required to let algorithms know what's what.
~Jason
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