I’m guessing when people purchase the music as it’s not a streaming service.

With that said, it appears there is the ability to share music socially - which seems like p2p sharing.

> With that said, it appears there is the ability to share music socially - which seems like p2p sharing.

Which is fine as there is plenty of music that is allowed to be shared free.

That wasn’t their question. We all get that there is music available to be freely distributed.

They get paid from whatever service you bought your music from - be it from CDs, MP3 sites like Amazon or Google Play (RIP), etc.

Scary thought, being able to purchase music these days rather than a streaming service lease, I know...

If I am only sharing with my family, then fine. But it looks like this software allows you to create a pod and share with whoever you invite. Which my purchase doesn't cover, right?

Be sure you soundproof your home/apartment, and don't turn it up too much in the car.

Don't want to accidentally leak any copyrighted joy to your neighbors without payment!

Seems like you are being sarcastic, but yes, if you play loud enough and to a big enough audience you do indeed owe royalties. In fact bars and restaurants are required to pay for this exact reason.

Exactly. Most often this is covered by the fact that the restaurant or bar is playing satellite or other radio which bears the broadcast permissions. And, the obvious—most people aren't horrible selfish goblins.

There's a definite difference between providing atmosphere in a restaurant, and providing the content as some sort of production, or providing others with broadcast-quality copies from a single master without permission of the artist.

Depending on what they're playing and how, friendly ASCAP employee.

I am aware of ASCAP and the RIAA's (and friends) claims; I just don't uncritically accept them, let alone act as a volunteer copyright-cop for them.

You are free to do whatever you like with your free time, of course.

> I just don't uncritically accept them, let alone act as a volunteer copyright-cop for them.

It seems like you are implying I am. When all I'm trying to do is make sure musicians get fairly paid for their work. So yeah, I'm not super concerned about playing music loud in my car as you sarcastically suggested I should be.

I am concerned about joining a music platform where something I purchased can be shared for free to millions of people with the musician getting nothing.

If there is a service that pays musicians directly and cuts out ASCAP and RIAA, then even better.

> It seems like you are implying I am.

You are here talking down the tool and implying software you have not used is not legal while uncritically repeating their claims, which are more aggressive than many copyright lawyers believe is accurate.

I'm sorry if you find my flip characterization uncharitable. If you need a less off-the-cuff one, you are uncritically lending your voice to the legacy copyright cartel's continuing attempts to monopolize music distribution.

That does do several things. Promoting fairness for musicians is not one of them.

> you are uncritically lending your voice to the legacy copyright cartel's continuing attempts to monopolize music distribution.

Especially when I said this, right? "If there is a service that pays musicians directly and cuts out ASCAP and RIAA, then even better."

OK, that does require an apology; I missed that, and it does change the tenor of your argument. It is unclear to me how to combine supporting musicians' abusers with supporting musicians, but this is not a productive conversation, so I'm dropping it.

> cuts out ASCAP and RIAA

The sad thing for me, is that even if something like that were to function, and no matter how well, people would find another reason the artists don't deserve payment.

So as it stands, organizations like that are how artists get paid at all.

And not as any hard defence of the RIAA in all aspects, but it's not like they don't do anything. They did help set the standards for effective vinyl mastering and playback...

> a music platform where something I purchased can be shared for free to millions of people

That doesn’t seem to be the intent or reality of how Funkwhale is used. All of the public pods I saw had less than 200 members. I imagine you’d run into scaling problems with larger pods.

If you are suggesting people to buy the CD then you are not contributing much to artists.

> Which my purchase doesn't cover, right?

It most certainly does in my country (and probably in most of Europe I would hasard).

The only thing you can't do is public performance and distribution but sharing it with your friends is definitely legal.

Without even looking at the law I'm going to guess there's some kind of clause about "within reason". As in, you can't reasonably claim that all 350,000 people who've downloaded the music you uploaded can be classified as "friends". That would certainly fall under broadcast or distribution licensing and legal terms.

Did your purchase cover your family? Why should your spouse and children be allowed to listen to music licensed to you?

My goal is that musicians get fairly paid for their work as opposed to making sure I am following every subtle licensing technicality in my own home, which is only an exercise in pedantry and accomplishes nothing practical for musicians.

I don't talk with the attorneys who create these complex licensing rules at Amazon, iTunes, etc. I talk to musicians. None of whom have ever had a problem with listening to their music with a small group of friends or family. The problem is with a platform that allows me to fire up a server and then invite thousands or millions of people to listen to someone's music for free.

Do you remember CDs, cassettes, records, etc.? Is it illegal to let family listen to those?

Agate Berriot, the lead developer of Funkwhale, is creating a donation mechanism https://agate.blue/2019/06/09/introducing-retribute-a-decent...

This isn’t a platform, it is software you install and run on your own client and server.

"Funkwhale is a community-driven project that lets you listen and share music and audio within a decentralized, open network."

From the top of their landing page.

I want to be surprised by how controversial this simple question seemed to be, and yet I'm not. I'm disappointed, though.

People who run servers will probably fall under the Music Modernization Act.

Every DSP (Digital Service Provider) is required to register with the Mechanical Licensing collective, and the administrative fee is $5,000 per year if you fall under the threshold number of streams. If you pass that, then it's $60,000 to unlimited...

Of course you'll have to file monthly reports and pay the royalties due under the blanket license as well.

Donations, according to the creators of Funkwhale.

Some comments here are making assumptions about the motivations/ethical principles of the developers, but how about reading directly what they say?

It turns out that they've been thinking quite a lot about this problem: https://agate.blue/blog/2018/05/11/funkwhale-content-monetiz...

Donations I think. They should be able to add links to their homepage, PayPal, patreon, etc. Or maybe that's an upcoming future, I can't remember exactly.

If this is an existing feature, or when they add it, the platform becomes way more interesting to me. I'd love to pay musicians directly instead of the embarrassingly low payouts from services like Spotify.

A feature would be nice to have, but right now you can just go to an artist-friendly shop (such as Bandcamp or Qobuz) and buy an album of the artist you'd like to support.