Autonomies — A Manifesto
Autonomies is a musician and community owned decentralized co-operative, created to revalue digital music content.
The approach of current music streaming and download platforms has undermined the work of artists and labels for too long. The content ownership and artist-audience relationship model is antiquated. This needs to be claimed back through enhanced transparency and direct accountability.
Today, music creation on its own is not a sufficient source of income. This is problematic, as it forces independent artists to focus on the productization of secondary items and promotes a constant pressure on self marketing, rather than concentrating on the creative process.
Decentralized technologies can give back to artists the control over how their art is valued, created, distributed and resold, providing a more sustainable and equitable redistribution system.
Crypto and Web 3.0 are complicated & daunting to the outsider, NFTs are currently viewed as a quick short term cash grab for the few. In contrast, Autonomies seeks to create long term digital literacy providing tools and guidance to access these emerging technologies.
Our Plan
Through our long-standing involvement in electronic music, this is what we know:
- It is already digitized and decentralized.
- It is mainly composed of small-scale, largely independent artists and labels.
- It is an interdependent network of people, trends and ideas.
- It is forward thinking and open to new technologies.
In short it is the perfect experimental ground for the Autonomies initiative.
An initial batch of 100 curated electronic music artists will publish exclusive audio productions on the platform. Our system will give artists full control over how their creations can be accessed and valued.
Collectors and fans will be able to purchase a unique piece of music and have the opportunity to resell it. But with each resale, unlike with existing second hand physical marketplaces, the creator will receive a residual share. Hence, we aim to create a virtuous cycle between collectors and artists by giving ethical and monetary incentives to users not to leak files.
The platform design will be accessible and inclusive with hardcoded solidarity. In practice, every transaction occurring on the network will face a tax. This tax will go into a community managed fund that will be used to sponsor, educate and onboard a diverse set of musicians who do not have the means to experiment and create material for the platform.
We will then gradually add new community-led features, build up the ecosystem and the platform through a decentralized governance model. This means that we will turn artists and collectors into shareholders of the system.
This will open new direct channels between artists, labels and collectors, reward and give voice to the project contributors.
How to get involved
- Join our discord
- Educate yourself and join our weekly community calls
- Connect with other member artists in Discord
- Join a working group
- Apply to join the cohort
