Brisbane-born streaming platform Distrosub just launched in September from their base at Superordinary at Hamilton Northshore, aiming to set a new standard for the future music industry.
Lincoln Savage, founder and director of Distrosub, said: “If you want to support your favourite artists, you can do it in a much more financially effective way for the artist using this platform.”
Having worked in the music industry for 15 years, Mr Savage has run music festivals across south-east Queensland, including Yonder Festival.
“The focus of our work for a long time has been supporting emerging early-career musicians from south-east Queensland.”
“We wanted to try and create something that benefited musicians, that was a scalable project, not geographic compliance,” he said.
Mr Savage said, unlike streaming platforms like Spotify, which are structured to benefit corporate investors and advertisers, Distrosub is designed with artists in mind.
“For example, you subscribe to Spotify per month, and then Spotify mysteriously distributes that fee between the artist and the platform.
“Whereas with Distrosub, a user subscribes directly to an artist. So the artist gets the vast majority of that revenue, and it goes straight to them,” he said.
Mr Savage said Distrosub has everything you would expect and more.
“The music listening service is pretty standard. You can listen to it on your phone and via Bluetooth while you’re driving in the car. It functions quite the same way (as other streaming platforms).
“The difference is that the artists get to control all their data, all their music. The artists get to communicate directly with their subscribers, which you can’t do on other streaming platforms,” he said.
Mr Savage said the social communication features allow listeners to comment and respond to artists’ posts.
“Artists can share more information about their gigs directly, they can promote their shows, and eventually, at some point, there will also be a merch function.”
“It’s free for artists to sign up, and they can start generating revenue immediately. Ideally, our goal would be working towards a living wage for artists. It’s something we think is achievable if there’s a structural change in the industry,” he said.
Follow Distrosub on Instagram (@distrosub) for updates and visit distrosub.com to learn more.
