UCPS: I'm looking forward to be part of it!

I hope he does too! @T.L 

You asked a very interesting question - when we have more news about its implementation, we can share more info about how much data will be disclosed to users as well. The principle is what we're fighting for, because we're all music lovers 

It's important to bear in mind that all revenue goes to labels first, and then subject to their contracts with artists, there's a redistribution 

I’m looking forward to it!

Hey @T.L 

I'm back with some news!

We want to launch a UCPS pilot this year. But to do it we need all of our label partners to agree. The discussions are positive, but not done yet 

I was signed up with both Spotify and Apple Music, but have just decided to sign up with Deezer precisely because I am absolutely convinced that the User Centric Payment System is the right way to do things. Indeed, I might mention that starting in 2015, I put a huge amount of effort (and about €25K of my own cash!), into setting up a User-Centric Streaming System of my own. It was called Fairstream. I actually had a company set up in the UK, and I had paid developers to develop a streaming app that could be downloaded for iOS and Android devices. I had the thing running on an Amazon Web Services site that could have handled 10,000 simultaneous streams. However, in 2018 I chucked in the towel, because despite my enthusiasm, I couldn’t get musicians sufficiently interested. And why would anyone pay a monthly subscription to listen to a few hundred tracks.

So, I was EXTREMELY happy to see that Deezer has taken up the UCPS idea. Is it actually working yet? Are there labels that are actually implementing the scheme? From Deezer’s site, I found a set of 14 different partners - mainly in France (which is fine with me, I live in France). I looked up there websites - and here they are (I couldn’t find two of them).

https://www.facebook.com/musicmanagersforumfrance/
https://www.iaomusic.org/
https://playtwo.fr/
http://lagam.org/
https://www.wagram-stories.com/
https://idol.io/en/
http://www.totoutard.com/
https://www.believemusic.com/
https://www.upfi.fr/
http://www.because.tv/en/
https://fede-felin.org/
https://outhere-music.com/fr
 

Now, if I knew which artists are signed up with these labels and producers, and if they were clearly committed to sharing my subscription money according to the time that I spend listening to those artists, I could easily decide that I would only use Deezer to listen to them. I could decide to listen to the major artists via my Spotify account, where clearly if my money goes to the Eagles, then OK, fair enough. But if there was one artist on one of the partner labels that I like, and I only listen them them via Deezer, can I conclude that of my €10 monthly payment, 30% would go to Deezer, and €7 to the one person I was listening to? If so, you have a real winner. I would happily pay Deezer €10 a month just to be able to directly support the artists that I care about.

Of course, it’s actually not enough for Deezer to hand €7 to the one producer/label that handles my favorite artist. That producer also has to accept that my money only goes to the artist that I want to support (and not have a deal where their biggest artists gets most of my money). That is maybe not something that Deezer can impose. But if that was the case, it would be up to artists to only sign with a producer or label that they can trust to treat them fairly.

Anyway - well done Deezer. I hope you can change the world with this scheme.

Hello @simonjthorpe, we’re still in the process of making it a reality, the negotiations with labels take longer than anticipated, as you can imagine. But this is a very important project for us. Thanks a lot for your support!

How can we support this idea?

Simply being the Deezer customer. Thanks for being one.

That @hpguru and also @SaraJaleh once we have our new website up and running, you can share the link on your socials 

(you can share it now, by the way  )

@SaraJaleh

→ https://www.deezer.com/en/ucps/me