New music streaming platform, Marine Snow, pays artists upfront for exclusive tracks

A new music streaming platform called Marine Snow offers to pay artists upfront for exclusive tracks.

Self-described as “a digital oasis for vivid music lovers” and “a secluded music community anchored around singular music”, Marine Snow features a 90-day rotation of specially curated tracks exclusive to the platform. This means each artist receives a fixed share of the revenue regardless of the number of streams. The platform promises to compensate the equivalent of “500,000 Spotify plays” upfront.

There is currently music available to stream by the likes of Amnesia Scanner and Palmistry, while the platform previously featured tracks from DJ Earl as well as a collaborative piece from AceMo and DJ SWISHA.

Marine Snow also encourages music discovery by letting users collect ‘capsules’ that contain a random track. They can also earn ‘gem shards’ by reading song blurbs and listening to music which can then be combined into new capsules.

“The median artist we are working with receives about 100,000 streams on their median song on Spotify over the lifetime of the song, meaning that for 90 days we are paying 2.5x the lifetime revenue of their median song,” Marine Snow founder Tony Lashley told RA of the process behind the platform.

He continued: “This multiple is even higher for artists in the Global South and the developing world, where per-stream rates are normally lower. A local artist in Indonesia for example is making 14x in 90 days what they would make over the lifetime of their median song on other platforms.”

Marine Snow has been available to download for free from the App Store since 2nd June but a beta version of the app has been running since September 2021.

Earlier this year, the UK’s Competiton and Markets Authority (CMA) formally began its investigation into the UK music streaming market after a report by the DMCS Committee found that streaming needed a ‘total reset’. Last year it was revealed that only 0.4 percent of artists make a living from fans streaming their music.