Katy Perry, Nas, and Jason Derulo Are Investing Big in a Spotify Rival

[BUtterfield 8 41,506]

When you play a song on major streaming platforms, money doesn’t just zoom straight into an artist’s pocket. But what if it did? That’s how payments are designed to work on Audius, a platform built on a blockchain — yes, the same technological network that NFTs run on.

And this three-year-old San Francisco-based company that employs fewer than 40 crypto-crazed people has officially piqued the interest of some of music’s biggest power players. Later today (September 16th), Audius will announce a $5 million round of strategic funding led by major music celebrities, the team exclusively tells Rolling Stone.

Artist investors include Katy Perry, Nas, The Chainsmokers via their Mantis VC, Jason Derulo, Pusha T, Steve Aoki, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, and Disclosure. Mountain-moving executives from different sectors of the music industry are also shelling out: They include Martin Bandier, who ran Sony/ATV Music Publishing as its chairman and CEO for 11 years; Guy Oseary, Madonna and U2’s longtime manager, via an investment firm he launched with Ashton Kutcher called Sound Ventures; Michael Kives, founder/CEO of investment firm K5 Global, who also used to be a talent rep for the likes of Perry, Kate Hudson, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger; and Hitco Entertainment founder and Bahamian recording studio owner Charles Goldstuck, who previously co-founded J Records with none other than Clive Davis, and helped build it into RCA Records.

Onward we go: Other spots on the money list belong to Electric Feel Ventures’ Austin Rosen, the founder of a management company of the same name, who has also quietly co-written mega hits for stars like Post Malone (“Rockstar,” “Better Now,” “Sunflower,” “Congratulations,” “Wow”), Selena Gomez (“Wolves”), and Jonas Brothers (“Sucker”); Three Six Zero CEO Mark Gillespie, who’s Calvin Harris’ longtime manager; John Josephson, chairman and CEO of SESAC Rights Management; YM&U’s Matt Colon, who co-founded Deckstar, the management company that represents Aoki, Blink-182, Travis Barker solo’s work, and crypto-savvy musicians like RAC and 3lau; and Tom Windish, the live music veteran who, perhaps most notably, sold The Windish Agency to Paradigm in 2017.

The last time a string of heavyweights dropped big dollars into a streaming competitor it was for Jay Z’s Tidal.

Rolling Stone asked the veteran chief executive Bandier, who’s watched the biz hit the highest of highs and lowest of lows in his multi-decade career, what drew him in. “Blockchain, which I understand to be a transparent and immutable ledger of transactions, should benefit songwriters and other creators in a way beyond what the current system permits,” Bandier says, adding that while he would “never pretend to be an expert” here, his 32-year-old son Max has been following crypto developments and advising him. “Songwriters need more avenues for revenue, and this model should also help expedite payments for their music as it streams across the world.”

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[RAMROD 109,879]

Didn't they learn from celebs who invested in Tidal??

[nightadieu 4,531]

Isn’t this going to be super bad for the environment? 

[holy scheisse 22,299]

So would Katie et all pull all their music from Spotify and apple music etc if it ever got big?

[Gagaloo911 12,959]

Good luck with that

[INNA 3,722]

These investors vs the Tidal investors? Apples to oranges

[Blastertoyo 22,734]

16 minutes ago, holy scheisse said:

So would Katie et all pull all their music from Spotify and apple music etc if it ever got big?

Most her streams prob come from her music videos on YouTube tho 

[likeitrough 5,862]

it would be great if they gave artists a larger percentage than rival services but as far as the user goes, what's different about this one? why would I move to Audius? 

Apple Music has the exclusives + video content, Spotify has the algorithm + interface, wby girl. what do you have? 

[GagaisHotAF 419]

Katy baby… You will be blacklisted by Spotify for your next album 

[Bling 31,459]

I hate to be negative but this is useless. Tidal literally made no waves, you need something completely different and revolutionary if you are going to be a "Spotify Rival". 10 year loyal Spotify user 

[SevenWonder 4,404]

Yeah, this feels a bit tone deaf or something. 

Does any music fan really care if Katy, Nas or even Gaga makes a bit more per stream? (Maybe Gaga, but still.)

Since we're the consumer, I think a better strategy would have been to let us know why Audius is light years better than Spotify or Apple and a must have for us music fan. Then, as a bonus, they can add that artists will make more money. 

But that's just me. 

[Reject False Icons 4,777]

But aren’t the artist’s label contracts who determine how much they earn from every platform including streaming. Even when they don’t earn anything at all. For every millionaire artist there are plenty of richer executives 

Like the industry is horrible and ofc it would be better for artists to earn their masters and **** but I don’t know how much they can change their contracts  

[Reid LePage 4,852]

9 minutes ago, Reject False Icons said:

But aren’t the artist’s label contracts who determine how much they earn from every platform including streaming. Even when they don’t earn anything at all. For every millionaire artist there are plenty of richer executives 

Like the industry is horrible and ofc it would be better for artists to earn their masters and **** but I don’t know how much they can change their contracts  

That's a whole different thing. I am an indie artist who maybe gets $20 from maybe 10,000+ streams from a song on Spotify. There's so much drama about the way they pay something like 0.00012 cents per stream for every song, so you sorta have to be a super popular or successful artist for it to pay off y'know?

[Mister G 10,480]

How about they invest in Spotify releasing their HiFi services already. They’re slipping behind the game compared to Apple Music and Tidal.

[AnglerfishbraBENUS 5,734]

all they are doing is investing lol if it doesn’t work out in their favor then they will be out of a million dollars. 

they have to do something with their money 🤷🏼‍♂️ why not invest in the future of music