The latest attempt to rethink crowdfunding for artists is Ampled, a cooperatively-owned platform that’s being built in the US by a group of artists, developers, designers and other creatives. “Our mission is to make music more equitable for artists and to operate transparently & ethically,” explains its website.
In some ways, we’re in Patreon territory here: artists create a page on Ampled, for free, and post “unique content” that fans can access by directly supporting the artist with $3 or more per month. But Ampled is also drawing some key lines between itself and VC-funded Patreon by making it clear that “artists on Ampled receive a share of the company and a vote in how it does business. Ampled is owned by its community, not by investors”, and also by stressing that “Ampled is only for forward-thinking and independently-spirited music artists, not podcasters or YouTubers”.
Ampled takes a 15% cut of the money paid to artists, and will use this to continue building and growing its platform, while promising to redistribute any profits back to its artist-owners at the end of every year. There’s lots more information on Ampled’s site, and also in this piece by Salon, which brought the platform to our attention.
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