Announcing Nina’s Community Revenue Share: Music Platform Economics Reimagined

Today, Nina is launching a brand new economic model: The Community Revenue Share. Instead of taking a cut from artists like every other platform, we're adding $1 to each purchase that gets split evenly and transparently between the platform to fund operations and the community members who helped make that sale happen. Artists still keep 100% of their price. But now the community that makes discovery possible gets recognized, too.

Click “Share” on Nina to get your own link. When someone buys through your link—or through a hub you curate—you get recognized and paid.

Below, we’ll share why we built this and more about how it works.

How Music Spreads

Music has always been bigger than any single artist, label, or platform. You don't stumble across music by accident. You find it because someone you trust wants you to hear it. Music exists because of communities. 

Nothing comes from nowhere.

A writer covers a new scene.
A friend sends you their latest discovery.
A curator surfaces new scenes and sounds.

Music spreads because people care and want to share it.

With Community Revenue Share, we're recognizing the impact of these contributions and ensuring everyone who helps music spread shares in its success.

When you discover an artist and share their music with friends, and when you curate a playlist that introduces hundreds of people to new music, you're shaping culture. When you champion an underground artist before they break through, you're building their career.

The Old Economics Are Broken

Yet on today's Big Streaming platforms, none of these contributors are recognized.

Big Streaming runs on an economy designed to obfuscate the role that community plays in spreading and shaping culture.  They do this to convince musicians that their platforms are necessary for discovery, even though:

• Payouts are obscure: artists never know what they'll earn, why, and from whom.

  
  

• Streams don't equal payment: all plays get thrown into one giant pool, and artists fight for crumbs.

  
  

• And worst of all, the incentives are upside down: platforms profit most when artists earn the least (through lower streaming rates, ghost artist placements, or AI filler).

The result? Artists chasing stream counts instead of fans. Communities provide crucial discovery and support for musicians, while their contributions go unrecognized.

Big Streaming hides the connections that spread songs and develop artists. Artists can't see their real supporters. Fans can't see their impact. The whole system siloes users instead of acknowledging and encouraging community and collaboration.

Community Revenue Share: A New Future For Music Platform Economics

Nina is built on a simple idea that flips traditional music platform economics: when an artist succeeds, the community that helps them succeed should benefit too.

Every sale on Nina now includes a $1 Community Revenue Share fee. The artist still keeps the full price of their music. This fee gets distributed to:

• - Nina platform operations (50¢)

• - The first collector (20¢)

• - The person who shared the link that led to the sale (20¢)

• - The person who invited the buyer to Nina (5¢)

• - The person who invited the artist to Nina (5¢)

*When a purchase happens and any of the participants are empty, those fees get split amongst the remaining community members, excluding Nina.

Who Is The Community Revenue Share For

The Community Revenue Share is for anyone who shares music.

For Artists & Labels, whether you're just releasing your first track or have spent the past decade growing an audience, it lets your fans get recognized and rewarded for sharing your music and helps you identify who your most impactful supporters are.

For Listeners, it’s a chance to actively support the artists you love so they can grow and keep making music. When you share links on socials, drop them in group chats, or repost to curated hubs on Nina, you help artists reach new fans. Now your impact is tangible.

For Curators & Journalists, it’s a new way to monetize the work you already do: sharing the music you love with listeners who trust your taste. Curate hubs on Nina and add Nina links to your reviews, interviews, blogs, and essays. Then see the impact your taste has on the artists you champion. 

Where the Money Goes

On Big Streaming platforms, you don't know where the money goes or why. Payouts are pulled from a shared pool of subscription fees and divided based on total plays across the platform. Artists usually get paid two to three months later. The listener’s only role is paying the subscription fee.

With the Community Revenue Share, artists and the community members that help them grow get paid out instantly and transparently. At the point of purchase, a buyer sees everyone that's getting paid, how much they're getting paid, and why.

Example: A fan buys a release for $10 after a music blog reviews the record and includes a Nina link. A $1 Community Revenue Share fee is added and they pay $11 total.

• - Artist → $10

• - Nina platform operations → $0.50

• - First Collector of the release → $0.20

• - Sale Referrer (e.g. Blogger) → $0.20

• - Person who invited the purchaser to Nina → $0.05

• - Person who invited the artist to Nina → $0.05

The $1 fee acts as a systemic contribution to the sustainability of Nina and the communities that create, share, and contextualize independent music. It acknowledges the real ways independent music spreads online today.

The First Collector

Nina previously covered the small blockchain storage fees on release uploads. Now the first buyer covers these costs, typically $1-3, and in return earns $0.20 on every future sale plus waived CRS fees on their purchase. This fee covers the lifetime storage cost of the release, and allows Nina to let artists publish without paying a subscription fee to keep their music available. Previously, Nina covered these fees. Now, these storage fees are paid by the first purchaser of a release, who becomes a patron of that release.

Why Blockchain Makes The CRS Possible

Making this work required solving a technical problem that's plagued the music industry for years: micropayments.

Nina uses blockchain to power faster, cheaper, and more transparent platform dynamics. When Spotify stopped paying for tracks with fewer than 1,000 streams a year, about 2/3rds of its catalog, it pointed to the cost and complexity of micropayments. Traditional payment systems cannot efficiently send someone 30 cents.

It allows us to send payments instantly, no matter how small, anywhere in the world. Payouts are verifiable and programmable. On Nina, artists, fans, communities, and the platform share value directly and instantly.

Recognizing the Role Everyone Plays

The payments from Community Revenue Share are modest by design. A passionate fan might earn $5-50 a year. An active curator could see $50-100. A music blogger with reach might earn a few thousand.

This is not about replacing traditional PR, marketing, and press. Sharing music is a natural thing that all artists and music fans do, and these payments are recognition for the role people play in helping music spread. They are a new model where the platform shares value with the community that creates it.

A Better Future For Independent Music

Big Streaming was never built for independent music. It was built to address the needs of the major labels that first negotiated streaming pay rates. Their economic models still serve that system. Artists are reduced to "content providers," listeners to "consumption machines."

Nina was built for something else entirely. For four years, we have been imagining a better future for independent music online. A place where it is free to upload and free to listen. Where context is the difference between liking a song and loving an artist. Where artists and listeners are collaborators in building a flourishing music ecosystem.

Community Revenue Share is our biggest step yet toward that vision. It recognizes that sharing music isn’t just consumption, it’s participation. And contributions, even when recognized with modest payments, help remind us the of the role we all play in helping Independent music thrive

Start Shaping Music Culture Today

Community Revenue Share is live today. You now have a reason to make Nina your link of choice when you share music. Whether you’re texting a track to a friend, posting on socials, or writing about an artist, sharing Nina links means everyone who helps music spread gets recognized.

Find a release you love on Nina and share it. Curate a Hub around a scene you’re passionate about. 

Every share, every collection, every repost adds up. Not just in earnings, but in building an ecosystem where independent music actually thrives.

Whether you’ve been on Nina for years or are just getting started, you can help reimagine what a music platform can be.

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