Report: Greg Phillips. Photos: Jason Rosewarne.
“The Future of Social Media Is Here,” spruiks the press release from FENIX360, the new artist-centric multi-genre social media platform. Last night during a media conference at the Corner Hotel, FENIX360 Founder and Global CEO Allan Klepfisz and FENIX360 CEO Asia Sandy Monteiro (Former President, Universal Music – Southeast Asia) took to the stage to educate attendees on the benefits of their artist-friendly platform.
The issues facing indie creatives are clear. The traditional platforms that artists use to deliver their music and music fans use to consume their music, do not compensate the artists honourably. For instance, co-founder and chief executive officer of music streaming service Spotify, Daniel Georg Ek has an estimated net worth of $4.8 billion according to finance bible Forbes. The artists who have helped him to achieve such wealth earn between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream on average.
As recently reported by Noise 11, “Spotify announced that it would be no longer pay royalties on songs that stream less than 1000 streams a year, according to MusicBusinessWorldwide.”
“Spotify currently has around 184 million songs available. Under Spotify’s new 2024 payment policy, 150 million (or around 81% of all Spotify songs) will no longer qualify for payment.”
Fair it is not! However, this is not a new phenomenon, the big guys at the top end of the entertainment business have always made the money. Sure, a small percentage of artists have cracked the code and earned their fortune or at least decent living (certainly in the physical product days anyway) but for the relatively unknown indie artist struggling to get a gig, financial life can be pretty grim. Despite there being tens of millions of artists worldwide, only a small number of them make a decent living from their craft and in most cases it’s not through a lack of talent.
At a well-attended press conference of local movers and shakers at Melbourne’s Corner Hotel last night, we learned about a considered solution to the above inequalities in the music business, a new artist-centric multi-genre social media platform called FENIX360.
Press conference host Jane Gazzo welcomed us to country and outlined the running order of the evening before introducing Gypsy Lee, daughter of Australian singing legend Kate Ceberano. Gypsy Lee, backed by three superb backing vocalists (Isadora Lauritz, Abbey Rose Bradhurst, and Amalia Foy) and a talented guitarist (Tom Lindsay) performed a stunning set of material from her soon to be released debut EP Pretty In The Dark (Out August 2). Gypsy Lee is exactly the kind of exciting new artist FENIX360 is looking to assist through their new platform.
Gazzo then introduced FENIX360’s Allan Klepfisz and Sandy Monteiro to explain the thinking behind their concept. Klepfisz immediately cut to the chase by saying that through his experience with digital media platforms, “an artist was not being compensated, neither by the digital music platforms adequately, nor … and even in many ways worse, by social media. Social media only exists because of the attractive content it has supplied by the artists … but somehow they have evaded any responsibility to properly compensate artists.”
Monteiro who has worked as a high level executive in the recorded music business for decades added, “I know all the good things about digital music transfers and all the little cracks, that were basically losses to the industry but also losses to the artists, where the industry got paid but the artists didn’t. There’s so much money out there on these platforms. Actually there’s enough money for everybody but the platforms have decided to take ninety nine percent of all the money.”
Consequently, in 2017 the pair set about developing a social media platform that favours the creator, not the labels or management. What they came up with, as described in their media kit is: “FENIX360 is an artist-centric, multi-genre social media platform that has been created to help independent artists and creatives to monetise their art more lucratively. Developed by a core team of founders and senior executives with deep passion, insight and experience in the worlds of music, art and advertising, FENIX360 reflects their passion and dedication to economically invigorate the creative landscape with the knowledge that the success of the FENIX360 model can greatly enhance returns for artists and stakeholders and provide greater satisfaction for fans and users.”
There would seem to be nothing to lose and much to gain by jumping aboard FENIX360. FENIX360 is now available on smartphones and tablets as an IOS or Android app and on PC’s via a web interface that automatically provides artists with a website equivalent of their individual app.
Also check out the clips on FENIX360’s YouTube channel which show you how to make your own app as an ARTIST or FAN
