

Ask YC: Building a music platform for public domain recordings. - will_phipps

Hi all.<p>I got this killer idea, I just can't code it, so if you can code, please do drop me an email.<p>The idea is simple - on Rdio and Spotify there's thousands of albums by all the blues, folk and country legends of 1930's, 1940's etc. The guys that invented rock and roll!<p>If you look for any old time blues great on these applications, for example John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson etc, you'll see literally hundreds of albums show up. The music is public domain, so I think anyone can profit from selling these; I don't think the families of these guys see a cent. And if they did, geting that cent would take a fair few Spotify plays anyhows ;)<p>There's over 400 John Lee hooker albums available, 146 Robert Johnson albums and 1007 Billie Holiday albums. Not even Frank Zappa has cut that many records.<p>My idea is to build a music streaming platform that serves up exclusively public domain music to fans of older music, like blues, folk, jazz, country etc. and it exists solely to pull in money from subscribers and divide it in a better way then rdio and others do. Most importantly, the money would go to surviving families of these artists and operate as a non profit entity.<p>I have an idea of how a payout model could work for this more effectively then current streaming models used on rdio etc.<p>Please do get in touch if you'd like to help put this together.
======
AlexMuir
I actually like this idea. But the non-profit angle loses me entirely. Good
luck though.

There are also plenty of public domain films out there.

