Like most countries of the world, The Netherlands is hit heavily by the Corona Covid-19 virus. This also affects our beloved music world strongly. Last Friday all concerts were cancelled for at least three weeks in our country, but if we follow the development of the pandemic, it is likely that this situation will last much longer.
This is not unique for The Netherlands, it happens all over the world. Most people know that many artists cannot make their income from recorded music sales anymore since the revenue on music streaming to a limited fan base is much smaller than that of CD sales to the same amount of fans. Musicians are therefore even more dependent on concerts for their income than in the past. The current situation is disastrous for them.
Dutch Music label TRPTK now offers a great initiative to helping its musicians in this crisis. They added a ‘Buy [artist] A Coffee’ button at the bottom of many artist pages of their website. They say: “With this button €3,- can be donated directly to the respective musician. A registration on the website is not necessary and no private data will be processed. The full amount goes to the musician.”
This one-click ‘Coffee button’ resembles Eelco Grimm’s attempt to bring a ‘Karma button’ into the Spotify user interface, about 2 years ago. So as you can imagine, we were an instant fan of TRPTK’s idea! We therefore call to all record labels to at least implement this button in their own web environment and promote its use. Please help to spread this message. If you work at a record label and read this, please contact Brendon Heinst at TRPTK who can help to add this simple direct payment service to your own page. Let’s help this initiative to grow to something big and perhaps once it will find its place in the music streaming services apps after all…
And for all you music lovers, who are now forced to enjoy music at home in stead of in the concert hall, please consider to support your favorite artist with a coffee donation or buying a high res music file download. The TRPTK artists are already available for you, with the coffee button and also with a ‘Stay at Home Sampler’ of which 100% of the profits go straight to the artists. Together we will stand strong!
