Hey all!
I've been quiet in here for quite a while, due to lack of time and personal issues. But now I just have to write this to get it out of my head. It's gonna be long… And I am pissed, yes pissed as hell. Sorry to say that. So yeah, don't read if you don`t wanna hear a pissed Raven lol. Sorry about the mistakes in my english aswell..
As I am blocked in the unofficial Choon group in Facebook, to maybe not letting me speak my mind, I will just do it here. No problem.
Some of you might already know. Choon deleted a few accounts (mostly bigger ones as far as I know at the moment), taking the NOTES which where in these accounts with them. There has been no warning or message in any form before or even after the take down.
As I am one of the few lucky ones who got deleted, I will not keep quiet anymore. I had almost 1.2 Million NOTES in my account when they deleted it. The NOTES price has been ok some weeks ago, and this has been some money! At least for me…
What annoys me most though is not the money, but the way of acting… Instead of writing an email to ANY of us, there was only a public message saying
„All of these accounts had clear and significant breaches of item 14.5 of our Terms of Service agreement, which relates to artificially increasing streams by the use of bots, additional accounts, systematic fraudulent plays, and play-for-play arrangements, and other related activities such as using various online platforms to incentivize fraudulent plays.“
https://medium.com/choonhq/fraudulent-activity-clean-up-95ee07622699
Well good to know that.
Where is the proof though? It's nice to start damaging someones reputation by just saying something like this. Some of us wrote an email yesterday to ask what`s going on. As to expect, no answer yet. Choons Business Model seems to include a lack of communication…
Funny thing though is, they can answer to a tweet very fast. Like to this one posted by a fellow artist yesterday:
What made some of us think was that Gareth Emery completely resigned from the team. No one of us really knew about this before yesterday. He further writes „the other 4 original co-founders are no longer with the company“. Hmm. Why is that? Just curious. The new CEO of the company is some other guy now…
Ah and I forgot, only one of us got an email, insisting to take down all the Choon tracks off the website of atomcollectorrecords.com. Maybe you still don't understand? But having the support of such a big community can only be a bonus for websites as Choon, as they are still small and want to entert he market, and so they NEED support of as many artists and listerners as they can get. And thats what Atomcollectorrecords is about…
Funny thing is also, Choon has this awesome feature (OK yeah thats the only thing I must admit was a very great feature) of making playlists AND be able to earn with makinig the playlists. So you don't need to be an artist to earn NOTES. It`s enough to be a listener, making playlists and love listening to your favourite tracks on the page. As many of us did. Yes we listened to other artists on the plattform. And why ist that? Cause all we got in mind is cheating?
Well not sure, but did it ever come to your mind that we might listen cause we think these artists are great and doing awesome music we love listening to? And knowing we support them and their music by doing so? So taking down some of the biggest accounts on the page means, you also maybe deleted some of the greatest music and most popular artists on the page. Why is that, if you want to make your platform great? I am sorry. I don't consider myself as stupid, but I don't understand.
We are all still small artists, who need the support of others, who need the small amount of money we can make with these pages. We work our asses off 24/7. It´s a tough business anyway. So why are you just taking down these accounts without speaking a warning, without giving these artists at least some chance to take position or to change their behaviour IF they really did something wrong? And I'm not at all sure about that.
Furthermore… Damn I could go on and on. There are so many points which make me laugh or feeling sick. And I think I need to throw up when reading this…
"Everyone needs to realize just how important our mission is and why it matters to you, the artist, and the listeners. The music industry is shielded in secrecy and unfair business practices that disfavor the independent musicians and their ability to be fairly compensated for their original work. This is where Choon comes in."
Ahhh. That is where Choon comes in? What do you mean? Like having even more unfair business practices than the rest of the music industry? I can't find any other meaning in this sentence than that.
Let me tell you this:
I started with Choon in May 2018. It must have been only a few weeks after the website launch. So I was one of the early adopters. I used the page from the beginning, cause it was so simple, and the player just worked fine and I could send all the links to my friends so they could listen without having to sign up on the page. I really was having hopes in the project and liked it alot. So I started promoting it as much as I could. With all my social media accounts, on crypto sites like here, in real life to my friends and family, by telling other artists to go there too and upload their music. – I am sorry now for doing this, for dragging you there, but well I was stupid, not knowing what was behind all this shit lol. So that means, I was promoting this page for 1 year of time! From the beginning on. I only went a little more quiet the last months, cause I didnt have enough time for social media.
Whatever, the truth is, I got quite big on the page in the beginning. I was always one of the top artists and under the top tracks for month. (Urgh I sound as narcistic as some guy who,.. a nevermind) Choon then asked me if they could make an interview with me and that they wanted me as featured artist on the page. And that they love my stuff and are all dancing to it in the office. I filled out all the interview questions, also emailing with them some time. And finally.. Something happend which I am not sure what it was. I strangely got the feeling they started to ignore me or even dislike me.. I never saw any interview or featured artist stuff. I didn't get an answer the first two times I asked a few month later about the interview. Then there was a short nonsense answer and then no answer again. This interview stuff is over one year ago now. Strangely the top tracks on the page started to change extremely during that time. I have an idea what might have changed their oppinion about me, but if this really is the reason, it's as bullshit as all the other stuff going on here at the moment.
But let me tell you this: Ignoring an artist or even DELETE him, should not have ANYTHING to do with personal likes or dislike of someone. But I get more and more the feeling that this is what might drive Choon these days. Cause the deleted accounts seem to be so random. I know many of them and there are alot of great artists! And what's even worse: MASSIVE supporters of Choon. Choon wouldn't be where it is without these people.
What shocked me the most, was that D-Vine was deleted to. With also over 1 Million NOTES on the account. I mean, wtf? Are you serious? She was one of the greatest supporters oft he website. Has a radio show (SOTA) for one year now where she invites artists of Choon to show their music and talk about it. She told everyone to sign up on the page and upload their stuff, or to just use it as a listener. I really would like to know HOW many people are only on Choon cause she brought them there.
Best thing though, Mr. Bjorn Niclas was in her Show twice, talking about Choon. So what exactly doesn't he like about her way of using Choon? He seemed to like the concept of the radio show, or would he be in the show twice if not… And I am sure, D-Vine won't cheat on the page or abuse it in any form. So Bjorn, what exactly is your problem with HER account? This ist he most interesting question afterall.
Another questionmark:
2 big artists on Choon get suspected of cheating for some time now. For playing theirselves in return or with other accounts or for paying for their plays. I don't say it is like this, I just know that many people think it's possible. These 2 artists are still there, not deleted. One of them proving in Discord yesterday with a screenshot, that he paid 4.400 Pounds for facebook ads. Wait, what? I hope you didn't mean you paid 4.400 POUNDS for promoting your Choon links? I did not know what to say about this…
Is paid promo illegal? Probably not. But, isn't it questionable if someone takes so much NOTES out of the pool by paying for it. I mean, there are only 275k NOTES given out every day. So the one who's got the most plays, will have the most NOTES. And other artists will be getting less of course, if someone pays a hell lot for his own tracks. Cause the number of NOTES spent every day is always the same. So it's like a struggle to get a piece of the cake.
Long tracks on Choon get more NOTES. If you play a very long track, let's say 10 minutes or so, for ONE time, it will count as more than one play. And of course earn you more NOTES. This is strange to me, but might explain why some of the big artists on Choon upload such long tracks. Ok, this is only guessing. I don`t want to suspect anyone.. And we never got a transparent explanation on how the earned NOTES are calculated, no matter how often we asked. Isn't this something blockchain stands for? Transparancy. Or I might have got the whole system wrong.
Good for these 2 artists though: What you can see even after only one day of taking down some of the big accounts on Choon, is that the amount of NOTES that these 2 earned rose extremely, cause other big accounts where gone. So now they get more NOTES out of the daily pool.
I am not saying someone of them is cheating! I just say, it seems a little suspicious to some people. Considering the fact, that other accounts just got deleted without any message and without knowing what they had done… Well.
So guys. Even IF there is maybe some cheating in some accounts. Does this give you the right to just delete it without warning? To not give us an explanation? Or a PROOF? Or a chance to change the problem?
AND to take all the NOTES? I earned them for 1,5 years. It was a fucking lot of work and time for promo. I am a small artist. We all struggle, it`s hard work and a hard business. What gives you the right to act like this? Speaking in terms of professional business behaviour, I mean, what are you doing? Do you think this will be a good thing for the reputation of your company?
Apart from that, songs which are collabs with other artists are still on the page, but our name or royalty split doesn't appear anywhere in the song. Is that legal? Taking back the 50% NOTES from the song which where mine and just let it flow back into the NOTES pool? And just display a song without our copyright on it? I am not good enough in law stuff to really know if that is illegal or not. But it doesn`t feel right.
At the end I want to say a big thank you to all the really loyal artists who haven`t been deleted but took down their tracks themselves or deleted their accounts now to show support for us! I am really thankful for that! This shows who will still stand in the end.
Only some examples of the support we got:
https://steemit.com/music/@ox17futuremusic/choon-deletes-artist-accounts-without-warning
https://choon.co/tracks/7dd5qd6cwb/somebody-ate-dj-d-vine-/ (FUCK this is funny!)
And you guys, who had no clue of all this until now: It's only my personal oppinion, but I think you should better get out your NOTES fast. Transfer them to metamask and exchange them into ETH, before they aren't worth anything anymore.
Prices wen't down since yesteday, and I believe they will drop even lower.
Here is a tutorial on how to do it.
https://steemit.com/choon/@atomcollector/how-to-sell-your-choon-notes
And now, a funny thing that made me laugh and finally made the day better yesterday.
One of our fellow supporters uploaded an obviously shit track (sorry man haha) to Choon to show how tracks if they are long get alot of plays or just to express his anger about the situation, or maybe just to have fun haha.
It didn't take longer than 10 minutes, until finally a comment and tip appeared under the track. The comment got deleted already, but I was able to make a screenshot. :D
Let me introduce the new CEO of Choon to you, who made an ironic comment to this way of artists supporting us. This shows even more how professional you are. Are you serious?
Don`t forget that we don't get an answer to our E-Mails, but making a quick comment to a protest track, that's always possible! :)
Ah and I forgot to mention. My whole account was deleted, BUT I still get the update Newsletters of Choon – as happend 12 hours after the takedown of my account. You only had one job, and that was to delete my whole account…
If there really was cheating in any account, we cannot say as there is no explanation. but well, I believe with the action of the last 2 days, - you just started the doom of your own company as soon as you become the CEO – so congratulations to that.
Maybe letting this all out is a mistake, and people will hate me for that, but it feels good to finally speak my mind.
Thanks for reading and for your love and support! <3
RAVEN
I just need to think about a song title of some fellow artists... "selfie stick narcissistic prick" Not sure why this comes to my mind now... :p