Learning More About Recent International Streaming Changes (FAQ)
What are listeners and DJs outside the US & Canada allowed to do now?
Through the desktop and mobile website, you can:
- Tune into any 8tracks playlist via YouTube embeds
- Listen in the normal fashion to music that you’ve uploaded to 8tracks
- Like or collect mixes, favorite tracks, follow people, leave
comments, participate in forums - Access your personalized home, listening history, liked mixes,
favorite tracks, and “listen later” or other collections - Upload music and publish new playlists (desktop web only)
- Review DJ stats and receive comments from listeners
In addition, you can continue to receive occasional emails so we can keep you in the loop, especially when we have news about future developments for our international friends.
–What are listeners and DJs outside the US & Canada NOT allowed to do?
Sadly, we can no longer support 8tracks’ native iOS and Android mobile apps outside the US & Canada.
–Why do you say that “many in the 8tracks community no longer have MP3 or AAC files from which to compile programming.” I still have local music files and don’t really care about picking tracks from a music library.
Understood, we like local files too, and you can still upload them. But a significant and growing proportion of listeners – particularly in younger demographics – don’t download music. We want to ensure we’ve a solution for mix creation that extends to anyone who has the passion and knowledge to curate killer playlists.
Later this year, we’ll revamp and streamline mix creation and extend this experience to our native mobile apps. Because most people don’t have many local music files on their phones, we’re preparing for a future in which you can easily access millions of tracks from our growing music library (thanks to direct licensing deals).
–You say you’ve “neither actively marketed nor directly monetized 8tracks outside the US and Canada” but you’re “now seeking direct global deals with record labels.” This sounds like you only care about making money. And if that’s true could you not just offer a paid version of 8tracks outside the US and Canada?
In order to keep the lights on at 8tracks, we need to maintain a viable business model. At scale, internet radio services pay more for sound recording royalties (which go to artists and labels) than for any other expense, including staff payroll. In the US and Canada, we can afford these royalties because our audience in these countries is sufficiently large that we can sell advertising directly to brands who seek to market to local listeners. Outside the US and Canada, our audience isn’t large enough to support direct advertising sales and thus deliver revenues of sufficient magnitude to cover the local royalty rates.
We potentially could offer a paid version of 8tracks outside the US and Canada, and we’ll explore this as we close additional label deals. We’ll be better positioned to improve both business models (advertising and subscription) and pursue label deals if we close additional funding. We’re considering the potential for a crowdfunded equity round in the coming months, which you can read more about here.
–You’ve mentioned the possibility of accessing 8tracks through an on-demand partner. Can you give us more details in terms of when this might happen and what it could look like?
We’ve not yet announced this new partnership (stay tuned), but we’ll offer on-demand access to 8tracks playlists through the partner’s mobile and web apps. The first phase will include basic navigation through 8tracks playlists, which we’re aiming to release in July or August. The second phase will allow listeners to search and browse using tags and log in with their 8tracks credentials to access personalized content (home, likes, favorites), which we’re looking to release in October.
Beyond this on-demand partnership, we’re working to ensure 8tracks’ long-term success as a stand-alone global platform for everyone to enjoy.
You can read all of this and post your comments or feelgs towards what is going in the forums too, we want to hear what all of your input and concerns: http://bit.ly/1Qi8XfP
