Facts: Gareth Thomas Rhys Emery, John Watkinson, Matthew Hall and Scott John Sartin, 4 of the original 5 founders of music streamer Choon resigned from the Choon board on the 24th of June 2019 and were replaced by Sacha John Kanaghines and Damien Peter Kanaghines with Bjorn Niclas Tufvesson (one of the original founders) according to companies house filings are reported by Endole.
Prima facie, it would appear that Bjorn Niclas seized control of Choon from the others or (more likely) bought that others out with a sizeable chunk of cash (we will know this on the 20 September 2019 when the accounts of Choon Services Limited are filed with Companies House in the UK).
What is clear however, is that Bjorn is taking Choon in a completely different direction compared to de facto leader Gareth Emery who captained the ship with a more liberal attitude one could say. This begs the question: why? Does Bjorn want to make Choon more lean and then sell it off like a venture capitalist? Did Bjorn deliberatly and intentionally delete artists to a) create media attention and increase exposure and b) to get artists to dump NOTES at bargain prices so that he could buy them back cheaply c) to figure out which artists were serious about Choon and thus remain? One would concede that any music entity seeking to make itself leaner will target the big hitters, but surely slamming the likes of Major musician Kris T Reeder (who has subsequently re-appeared with 1 track) and others could damage the platform.
Social media has been in a frenzy over the last few days with those who support artist cross-promotion and those who are clearly in favour of the rigid approach adopted by Choon (the comments in our previous article here highlight this). However, whichever camp we sit in it is important to remember that the usual conduct when dealing with perceived or suggested breaches is to contact all parties concerned and give warning with amble time to correct the behaviour. It is also important to remember that Gareth Emery’s approach early on seemed to favour a more liberal / flexible interpretation of the ToS which makes MC Frosty’s comments more logical. He said that ‘Whether intentional, or unintentional, due to negligence or ignorance, the situation is that the potential violations were widespread and significant. These issues needed to be fixed to progress.’ Although, to ‘fix’ this issue requires reasonableness on both sides including Choon as deciding to enforce rules once ignored requires time and warning as it is difficult to enforce rules if at the outset you practically ignored them.
Maybe the movements over the last few days at Choon are part of a plan. A plan which at present none of us are privy to.
Listen to Kris T Reeder here:
Choon: https://www.choon.co/tracks/0b...a/time-to-fly-take-2/
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/ydaeqm6x
Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/yap8ms4q
Youtube: