CASH Music
| Founded | November 25, 2008 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Kristin Hersh, Donita Sparks, Jesse von Doom |
| Focus | Sustainable independent music |
| Location | |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
| Method | Open source, education |
|
Key people
|
Jesse von Doom, Maggie Vail (co-executive directors) |
| Website | cashmusic |
CASH Music (Coalition of Artists and Stakeholders) is a non-profit organization based out of Portland, Oregon founded by Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses, Donita Sparks of L7, and Jesse von Doom. The organization is run by co-executive directors Jesse von Doom and Maggie Vail. CASH Music takes an open source approach to music production and distribution, and works directly with musicians and labels to help design the tools they build.
CASH Music evolved from a discussion about the sustainability of the music industry between musicians Kristin Hersh, Donita Sparks, and their managers Billy O'Connell and Bob Fagan. Von Doom became involved shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, Portland-based record label Kill Rock Stars had reached out to von Doom, who operated a small web development studio, Dutchmoney, to build a new label website. Von Doom went "above and beyond" and created promotional tools that allowed then KRS VP Vail to "keep tabs on which music writers logged into the site and how many times they listened to the tunes". Vail, who was impressed with the tools and supported the CASH Music's mandate joined its board of directors in 2007. She became its co-executive director, alongside von Doom, in 2011.
The CASH Music platform is a free collection of tools for artists and labels to sell, share, and promote music directly to their fans. It is entirely open source, with all code available for viewing or forking at GitHub.
The platform currently enables digital purchases, download code generation and redemption, email collection, secure downloads, tour dates, member areas, and social feeds.
While many of the platform's features operate independently, it was also designed to be compatible with third-party resources, such as MailChimp, Google Drive, and PayPal through APIs. The idea is to "integrate seamlessly with as many relevant Web services as possible".
Artists currently using the CASH Music platform include Brendan Benson, Calexico, Deerhoof, Explosions in the Sky, 50 Foot Wave, Health., Iron & Wine, Kina Grannis, Learning Music, Lushlife, No Age, Portugal. The Man, The Raincoats, Ray LaMontagne, The Swell Season, The Thermals, Xiu Xiu, Zoë Keating, Zola Jesus.
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