Sockpuppet Blog.

Where’d your music go?!

Today I removed all my music, except The War Machine, from Spotify, for the reasons explained in that song (and also in this lengthy diatribe)¹.

But doing so also required, for very annoying reasons, removing it from all other streaming platforms as well, because the distributor I was working with, TooLost, had no option for removing music from just one platform without deleting and re-uploading everything².

So, when is my music going to get back onto the other streaming platforms? Ehhh.

Self-hosted streaming CDN

Performers who do streaming-based performances on VRChat and other places have a few options for actually providing their stream. Once upon a time it was preetty common for people to use Twitch or YouTube Live, but those are now being locked down due to advertising considerations. So, many people currently use VRCDN, an inexpensive but limited hosted service that you have to pay monthly for. But for folks with a bit more technical acumen, there’s another choice, Owncast, which is basically a self-hosted Twitch-like.

Here’s how I have mine set up and how I run it for (basically¹) free.

Please do not ask me about streaming distribution

Quite some time ago I posted my recommendations for streaming distributors but things have all changed in a very bad way since then.

On Spotify, and listening to and collecting music

As an artist I have my music on Spotify, because I feel like I cannot choose not to.

However, I would ask listeners to please listen to my music literally anywhere else.

Update: Jeremy Blake has made a very good video on this topic. I recommend that you watch it.

Another update: I have now removed my music from Spotify, and most other streaming platforms as a consequence.