The current music industry faces significant economic and social challenges that disproportionately affect artists – especially independent and emerging ones – due to the dominance of few major record labels. This leads to limited competition, unfair revenue distribution with low artist payments and opaque regulations that hinder artists from understanding their rights and responsibilities with their fans, reducing the high-impact potential of the music market.
Our project aims to offer a new paradigm in the music industry. Fans can invest directly in their favorite artists’ music production (or other activities), receiving a return based on their success. This model allows emerging artists to self-finance without long-term, often unfair, contracts with labels, and enables established artists to fund new or independent projects with direct support from their fanbase. Quarkk’s goal is to provide artists a space for expressing themselves freely and financing their projects with direct support from their fans.
Quarkk is an innovative platform being developed within the Alta Scuola Politecnica project that transforms the traditional model of artistic financing and support by creating a direct and transparent relationship between creators and their fans. Unlike conventional platforms, where artists often have to give up creative control in exchange for funding or exposure, Quarkk removes intermediaries and allows creators to maintain full ownership of their projects.
Through Quarkk, fans become more than just passive consumers—they can actively invest in their favorite creators’ success. By using a Revenue-Based Financing (RBF) model, fans contribute to an artist’s growth and, in return, receive a share of the future earnings from concerts, music sales, or royalties. This unique system strengthens the bond between creators and their audience, enabling fans to support what they believe in while enjoying tangible economic returns.