For readers unfamiliar: Subramania Bharathi (1882–1921), is our Whitman-meets-Yeats. Democratic fire with mystical intensity. He wrote fierce songs against British colonialism, against caste discrimination, for women’s liberation. They are radical even by today’s standards. His poems remain sung at protests, weddings, school assemblies. He died young, poor, struck by an elephant at a temple. The kind of death that makes legends.

Caste is the crux of Tamil Nadu politics, if not of entire India. From creating narratives to appointing candidates, everything tied with caste calculus.

I recall days when I engaged in debates like these, believing facts and logical arguments would change minds. I’d compile quotes, context, historical evidence. I’d type long responses with citations. I believed in the power of correct information.

Now I watch them continue debates, passionate about positions that will reverse in next election cycle. I sit quiet at tables where friends parse Bharathi’s verse. I feel lonely.

Vilfredo Pareto, the same one behind the 80/20 rule, developed something less famous but more devastating. His theory argues that human action springs from non-logical sources. Residues are deep drives: instincts for preservation, group belonging, maintaining what exists. Derivations are the elaborate justifications we construct afterward. Logic isn’t the engine. It’s the paint job. Pareto saw that humans find relief in believing themselves rational.

Watch the Bharathi debate with Pareto’s lens. The poems haven’t changed. Bharathi hasn’t written anything new recently, being dead since 1921. But suddenly he needs re-evaluation. Why now? Because someone needs him problematic for today’s political formation. Someone else needs him progressive for theirs.

The same verse that was revolutionary last decade becomes casteist this decade. Not because we discovered new meaning. Because we need new ammunition.

The comedy is watching people cite the same poems to prove opposite points. Like Bharathi wrote in quantum states, simultaneously progressive and regressive until political observation collapses him into one.

Pareto's theory was funny when I read it at thirty. Now it doesn’t sound funny. He was documenting tragedy as sociology.

The loneliness isn’t from disagreement. It’s from seeing the mechanism. Like watching a magic show from backstage. You see the strings, the trapdoors, the assistant crouched in the “empty” box. You can’t unsee it. You also can’t participate anymore. Not honestly.

Sometimes they ask why I don’t engage. “You used to have such strong opinions,” they say. I do. The opinion is that we’re all performing derivations while our residues run the show. But saying that out loud is social suicide. So, I just smile. Another derivation to hide my residue: exhaustion with the whole performance.

The cost of knowing what Pareto knew: you become audience to a play where everyone else is cast and script. You lose the comfort of believing in belief itself. Every passionate argument sounds like sophisticated noise.

But you still show up. Still sit at the tables. Still perform enough derivations to stay connected. Because the residue for belonging is stronger than the knowledge that belonging requires performed blindness.

Pareto knew something. Knowing what he knew doesn’t set you free. It just makes you conscious of the cage while you remain inside it.

Years ago, I remember writing to Apple asking how to get my music on iTunes. Apple Music wasn’t even born yet. They replied-professionally, helpfully introducing me to music distributors that I didn’t know existed.

Apple literally started me on this journey. The irony of what follows has not been lost on me.

Day 1: The Optimistic Beginning

I wrote my debut book on artist rights history in Tamil, starting from before the printing press. Apparently, I’m drawn to obsolete battles, because next I decided to become a classical composer in the streaming age.

I was inspired by the sheet music era and stories of Handel and Bach (who never had to argue with an algorithm about genre classifications), I moved from my DAW to a notation software. When I finished my first Piano work, I felt accomplished. After years of writing sync music in isolation, I was ready to share something that was truly mine.

Day 13: The First Encounter

RouteNote used to be free and took WAV files. Now they’re still free but only accept MP3s for the free plan. Look, I get the economics. Storage costs money, and I’m not exactly generating Spotify millions. Algorithms don’t chase me and I don’t chase them; we have a mutual non-aggression pact.

But twenty days for customer support? Twenty days! Wagner could have written another Ring Cycle. That’s when I realized the distribution landscape had transformed while I was peacefully writing sync music.

Day 45: CDBaby and the Discovery

I recalled having a decade old release with CDBaby. Decided to move to CDBaby. It is not free, but they responded before I forgot I’d written to them. Days later, I found my music on Apple Music Classical. I didn’t even know this existed. It’s like discovering a secret room in your house with your furniture already there.

Encouraged, I released a Sonatina and started a Theme and Variations that took sleepless nights.

Day 73: The Hunt for HD Audio

CDBaby doesn’t accept HD audio. Yes, most people listen on phone speakers that make everything sound underwater. But what if want to preserve the rosin of the first chairs for the twelve audiophiles who care. They’re my people. I was writing my new Passacaglia for them.

I decided to try a distributor marketing special platform relationship. I subscribed, submitted, and then...

Day 89: The Genre Wars

They insisted my classical work should be labeled “Instrumental.”

“But it’s a Theme and Variations. In C Major. With….”

“Instrumental.”

“It follows classical form…”

“INSTRUMENTAL.“

I let them distribute it their way. Then it appeared in Qobuz’s Pop section.

POP.

“Echoes in My Chamber: Theme and Variations in C Major, Op.3, No.1” sitting next to contemporary hits. That was the day I dropped opus numbers from titles. If you can’t beat them, stop giving them ammunition.

Don’t ask me why I use opus numbers. I know I am not Beethoven. Because he started losing hearing at my age, but I am just developing tinnitus.

Day 112: The Landscape Survey

Back to CDBaby, who distributed it properly. No drama, just basic competence. Revolutionary.

But still no HD audio. The search continued:

Ditto Music: No HD audio
LANDr: No Classical to Apple Music
iMusician: Want classical AND high-definition audio? That’s their top tier. Though credit where due, they keep your music up even if you stop paying.
Soundrop: The interface seemed to be having an existential crisis. Each edit created a new release. But wait—they accept high-definition audio, and at $0.99 per track? Their system must be flooded with everyone writing a passacaglia for strings to leave a legacy.

Day 124: Understanding the Game

I get it now. Serious distributors are expensive or invite-only because they’re filtering for people who actually make money. Classical metadata requires extra work that isn’t worth it for bedroom producers generating three streams annually.

Then Soundrop raised prices to $4.99. I actually felt relieved. Even their interface seems to be relieved from creating new releases on its own.(pay-per-release is better than subscriptions in my opinion, even if they are expensive.)

Day 126: The TuneCore Tragedy

Desperate, I paid TuneCore’s annual subscription. Then discovered:

They only have “Classical Crossover” (Bach feat. Billie Eilish?)
They can’t deliver classical to Apple Music
Refund policy: “All sales are final” (That is not a refund policy!)

My only real complaint? Tell me upfront. Don’t let me pay THEN mention you can’t deliver to a platform I want to.

Day 156: The Horus Compromise

TuneCore refunded me on request.

Then came Horus Music. They accept classical. They handle HD audio. They seem competent. Responsive customer care. The catch? I can’t choose individual stores.

So, the Passacaglia lives on Boomplay but not Qobuz. It’s like carefully plating a meal, then watching someone serve it wherever they feel like.

But at least it’s reaching somewhere, properly labeled, in the quality I intended.

Day 168: Bandcamp Discovers Curation

Meanwhile, Bandcamp, the one place where my music sits exactly where I put it, introduced “expert curated” playlist subscriptions for fans.

Even the direct pipe wants to become a platform. Even the place that let you just be now wants intermediaries between artist and listener. The experts will curate. The fans will subscribe. The algorithm creeps in through the back door, wearing a turtleneck and calling itself “human curation.”

I understood the economics before it happened. I still felt the weight when it did.

Day 171: The Collective Gambit

Which brings me to Subvert, a collectively owned music platform. Musicians owning the infrastructure. No algorithmic intermediaries. No genre wars with distant support teams.

The irony isn’t lost on me: I spent 170 days navigating distribution chaos, only to help build another platform. But this time, the inmates run the asylum. We’re the ones deciding where the Passacaglia lives.

Will it work? Ask me in another 170 days.

For now, I’m a founding member of a cooperative while simultaneously being distributed by Horus to platforms I don’t control, maintaining my Bandcamp where I have complete control, but curators are arriving, and figuring out what Subvert is going to be.

Epilogue

I’ve picked Soundrop for my next release. Unsubscribed from Horus Music today. They’re taking down the Passacaglia from Boomplay.

The question that persists: Is distributing to streaming platforms worth all this trouble?

This isn’t just my story. Many artists live this. They just don’t write about it.
That’s the difference.

PS: This post I published elsewhere. This is a revised edition with updates

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That is technically functional but fundamentally wrong. So, I traced it back to the source: LinkedIn. That platform where everyone begins their posts with rocket emojis and their career trajectories pretend to make sense.

LinkedIn wanted me to pick: full-time, part-time, employed, or self-employed?

The platform already had my education and my past industry positions that could look unconnected and strange to anyone seeking a narrative arc like someone threw darts at a career board blindfolded.

I went to LinkedIn to remove “self-employment”
“Tell me your employment status,” LinkedIn insisted.

But I am not employed. I am not self-employed. I am not a composer who builds. I am not a builder who composes. I am someone who sees foam pyramids everywhere and occasionally makes things that don’t lie.

The platform wanted me to network. To connect. To build my professional brand.

But I was already connected to the harmonic series I follow, to the earth I compress, to readers who don’t need algorithms to find me. My “network” includes structural engineers who trust my density calculations and musicians who understand why I ruthlessly kill darlings in my Chaconne’s second act.

So, I deleted my profile.

Then I recreated an empty profile as a placeholder to show that parking slot is reserved for someone who just sold their car.

Google will update eventually.

LinkedIn asked what I do.
I deleted the question.
That’s the most honest answer I could give.

P.S. - If you found this without LinkedIn suggesting we connect, you’re already outside their pyramid. The air’s clearer here, even if we’re all still pretending it means something.

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1. News about the Spotify lawsuit

The argument is that AI bots play Drake’s songs, he collects royalties, and it is cheating.

Everyone is sharing the lawsuit. Screenshots. Opinions. Drake’s name is the hook. The lawsuit is the headline. But neither is the story. They are only the visible tip. The rest sinks beneath the surface.

If you’ve never heard of payola

In the 1950s, American radio was rocked by a scandal that exposed the music industry.
Known as the “payola” scandal, it revealed a widespread practice where record companies secretly paid radio DJs to play specific songs, manipulating the charts and public tastes.

But payola never disappeared. We have “playlist pitching,” “marketing budgets,” “fan engagement services,” etc. The industry pretends the numbers are organic. Everyone else pretends to believe it.

At the core is a system that rewards inflation. Spotify pays artist royalties from a single pool. The artist with the most streams, takes the largest share. Fake streams do not evaporate. They steal from someone else.

But fixing one fraud inside a pro-rata system is cosmetic. The math itself is broken. It is theft even without a fake stream. It works because it looks like math. You cannot clean a pool that keeps filling from a dirty pipe.

The lawsuit is not trying to punish Drake. It is trying to make the machine show its gears. Everyone is staring at the tip of the iceberg. The rest is still underwater.

For years, musicians relied on platforms like Bandcamp to sell directly to fans without a middleman. Bandcamp was sold twice. It wasn’t killed the way AmieStreet was. But unlike Spotify, Bandcamp relies on a human algorithm these days.

Ventures like Magnatune could not survive either.

2. The new music platform Subvert is in its alpha phase

I am writing this as a founding member of the platform. A music platform owned by its users through a cooperative structure. Musicians, fans, and workers get ownership stakes. One member, one vote.

The clever part? They separated the co-op (which holds voting control) from the business entity (which can take investment). Investors can put money in but cannot control decisions. It is structurally different.

Co-ops aren’t new. They are 19th-century solutions to 19th-century problems, now applied to 21st-century platforms.

Why I joined Subvert

I am not Western enough for classical music, and not traditional enough for Carnatic music. Wrong for traditional labels, too weird for algorithm categories. I generally exist in the margins between systems.

But here’s the thing: I need to sell music somewhere. The choice isn’t between platforms and no platforms. It is between platforms that admit they are platforms and platforms that pretend they are movements.

Every platform promises to be different until it needs to be sustainable. Then the math takes over. Co-op ownership doesn’t change the math, but it changes who does the calculations. That makes it different.

I am a founding member of Subvert the way I am a composer of classical music. Using inherited structures without accepting their embedded assumptions. Even for someone skeptical, the co-op model is not worse than the corporate model. That is enough reason to participate while maintaining clarity about what participation means.

Subvert is a platform where being an edge case isn’t a bug. Co-ops don’t need to categorize you into pre-existing boxes to extract value. They need you to bring what you bring. The weirder the members, the richer the ecosystem.

If you are either an artist or a music lover interested in the conversation, you are invited

The bottom line

The Spotify lawsuit will pass. The headlines will fade. Platforms will adjust their language and continue as usual.

But with Subvert, ownership changes behavior. When the users hold the keys, manipulation becomes pointless. You do not need bots to steal from yourself.

A system built on extraction needs noise to survive. A system built on participation only needs signal. That is the difference.

That is why Subvert exists.

Subvert — The Collectively Owned Music Marketplace

I was strict about the bedroom boundary. When I returned after a month of work, she had colonized my side of the bed, specifically seeking my used clothes, my towels—anything that held my scent.

We developed a language. Different meows for different needs, accompanied by specific gestures. Sometimes I assume I understand. Understanding gives comfort, even when it’s constructed. Even unbearable problems become bearable when I believe I understand them.

By my work table sits a window. I work late nights; the kitten turned nocturnal with me. We became creatures of parallel rhythm, sleeping through the day while the world conducted its business. Through that window, she would hunt. One midnight, a lizard. I told my family to watch her—snakes live where we live.

I began closing the window at night.

The monsoon is late this year. Two weeks of moderate rain. Three nights ago, she stood by that window with a specific meow—eyes almost closed, a particular insistence I’d learned to read.

I opened the window. Let her go.

When I finished work and prepared for bed, she hadn’t returned. As I’d done previous nights, I closed the window. Previous nights, she’d waited on the portico until morning. This time, morning came without her.

It was Diwali night when she left. Firecrackers, rain—reasons for a cat to hide. She was in heat, female, not spayed. Perhaps she went for love. We have no solid reasoning. For two days, the family mood hung heavy.

Cat, dog, human—we construct memories, inquiries. I ask myself: what if I hadn’t closed the window? No solid answer comes. I look at the window while working, expecting her head between the grills before she jumps in.

Yesterday I told my son she would be happy somewhere, especially if she’d gone for love. Or I wanted to tell myself that. This doesn’t change that I’m not a cat person. Maybe she wasn’t a cat to me. I cannot articulate what I mean.

My son wanders at dusk and dawn, ringing the bell she played with.

Today, while I worked, looking at the window between sessions, my wife’s voice interrupted: “Please don’t start anything significant this week. Either music or something else. We want you this week.”

She’s right. The washing machine has waited a month for installation. I live in a rammed earth house I built—no plumber or electrician works without my presence. They need me when walls are involved. The new location requires drilling through rammed earth for the water outlet. Local plumbers tried once, thinking it was just a “mud wall.”

Like cats, walls have our mental constructs. I don’t think we can see anything without them.

When my wife says don’t start anything significant, she means something. At times, I venture into something and don’t return as expected.

Like the cat for whom we still wait.

My first "DAW" was a PASCAL program I wrote, using the PC speaker for beep sounds (pre-multimedia era), sending frequency values in Hz to produce music. A string input would generate a melody. Raag Amrithavarshini was convincing even without gamak- the pitch bends

The first actual DAW I used is now in a museum. Its developer creates iOS apps these days. Time moves differently in software years.

My friendship with algorithms is lengthy and laborious. I've watched them evolve from simple IF-THEN statements to neural networks that write marketing blogs and songs that could flood Spotify.

I said it was lengthy and laborious.

Lengthy: Sitting through debates about whether we were in the fourth or fifth generation during Prolog sessions.

But what haunts me still is the laborious part: The practical exam asked me to find a factorial. I know—finding factorial is easy for an exam. But not with a processor console that takes hexadecimal inputs. That's MACHINE LANGUAGE.

I guess people often misunderstand what “rigorous study” means. But I never hated algorithms. Even when they classified my Theme and Variations as Pop in one instance. If you are from India, Theme and Variations is like Niraval in Carnatic. You pick a theme and play the variations of the same.

Actually, I tried a French overture style variation. After writing the scores, either it wasn't convincing, or I found a better inspiration. But I kept the bass part of the overture style for that ceremonial gravity. Algorithm caught it “Pop Beat”.

A distributor put it under different classification, and the platform it was distributed to does not have a slot for that classification.

I realized: Algorithm and me. We both trying to process music through systems designed for three-minute pop songs. Neither of us fits the framework.

That's why we have our pact. Algorithms don't chase me (my Spotify stats confirm this), and I don't chase them. We recognize each other as edge cases in our respective worlds

The algorithm that put my Theme and Variations in the Pop section wasn't broken. It was doing exactly what it was told with the limited options it had. The humans who built the system never imagined someone would upload "Echoes in My Chamber: Theme and Variations"

Edge cases, both of us. That's our kinship.

Van Steyn had heard the stories for months. Local fishermen spoke of "Buaya Darat"—The land crocodiles, on islands they avoided after dark. Curiosity burned in Van Steyn’s his chest.

He pushed through dense jungle, branches whipping across his face. The forest air was humid and heavy. Towering trees groaned against each other in the wind.

Then he encountered it.

A ten-foot-long, saw-toothed lizard emerged from a bush. The creature's forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air. Van Steyn's spine turned to ice. The world had never known such a creature existed.

News of the Komodo dragon exploded across newspapers worldwide.

The Birth of a Monster

Merian Cooper, a Hollywood director, was captivated by the discovery. His appetite for adventure stories had found its perfect meal.

When Cooper's friend, adventurer William Douglas Burden, announced his plan to hunt Komodo dragons in 1926, Cooper listened intently. Burden returned with two live specimens for the Bronx Zoo, where crowds pressed against barriers to glimpse these prehistoric survivors.

But it was Burden's stories, not the dragons themselves that ignited Cooper's imagination. Tales of an island shaped like a skull, of dangers lurking in the jungle, of bringing a monster back to civilization. These seeds grew in Cooper's mind into something magnificent: a giant ape discovered on a remote island and dragged to New York City.

King Kong was born from the collision of a real dragon and a dreamer's ambition.

The Strategic Novel

Cooper was shrewd. Before filming began, he had writer friend Delos W. Lovelace transform his screenplay into a novel, published a year before the movie's release. This wasn't just merchandising. It was building hunger.

The gambit worked. When "King Kong" hit theaters in 1933, it conquered. The image of Kong atop the Empire Building became iconic.

Cooper had been obsessed with gorillas since age six. Once, while filming in Africa, encountering baboons gave him the idea for an ape protagonist. The name came to him like a drumbeat: "Kong... there was something mysterious about it."

King Kong vs. Godzilla: The Shock

Cooper believed his rights to King Kong belonged to him alone.

Then came that morning in 1962.

Cooper's coffee froze halfway to his lips. There in the newspaper was an advertisement: "King Kong vs. Godzilla." His Kong. Fighting a Japanese monster. Without his permission.

With trembling fingers, he called his lawyer.

Investigation revealed that RKO Pictures, the studio that produced his original film, had sold King Kong's rights to Japan's Toho Studios behind his back. They'd also been selling comics and merchandise, profiting from Cooper's creation.

Cooper's original contract with RKO was clear: he would direct for a salary but retain character rights. RKO couldn't sell Kong without his permission. They had anyway.

Cooper sued, but victory eluded him. During his service as a World War II pilot, crucial documents had vanished—including papers that proved Kong belonged to him.

The Remake Wars: 1975

By 1975, Hollywood had transformed, but King Kong's power remained unchanged. Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis decided a Kong remake would print money. He paid RKO handsomely for remake rights.

Universal Studios, having lost the bidding, responded with an absurd claim: they'd been "verbally promised" the rights.

Then Universal's lawyers discovered something everyone had forgotten: Delos Lovelace's novel. The copyright had expired. No one had renewed it. The novel had slipped into public domain.

Universal announced they would produce "The Legend of King Kong" based on this public domain novel. They even began pre-production, pressuring De Laurentiis.

In 1976, an out-of-court settlement ended the fight. Universal shelved their production. De Laurentiis released his remake successfully.

The Son Fights Back

Cooper died in 1973. His son Richard inherited the fight.

Richard Cooper went to court with fresh lawyers and old grievances. The verdict finally came:

Cooper's contract with RKO covered only the original "King Kong" and "Son of Kong." Every subsequent deal RKO made was unauthorized. Those profits belonged to Cooper's heirs.

The novel remained in public domain. But the character of King Kong? That belonged to the Coopers.

Richard sold these rights to Universal Studios.

Donkey Kong: When Nintendo Met Kong

1982. Arcade games were conquering the world quarter by quarter. In a Seattle bar, players pumped coins into a machine where a carpenter named Jumpman (later Mario) rescued his girlfriend from an ape.

The game was Donkey Kong. Universal smelled opportunity.

Fresh from purchasing Cooper's rights, Universal sued Nintendo for trademark infringement. Nintendo hired John Kirby, whose strategy was devastating.

Kirby excavated Universal's own arguments from 1976 — where Universal had claimed King Kong was public domain. He presented these arguments back to Universal like a mirror.

The judge didn't just rule against Universal; he excoriated them for hypocrisy. The court also noted that "Donkey Kong" and "King Kong" were entirely different names.

Nintendo's victory was so complete, they celebrated magnificently. They gifted John Kirby a $30,000 sailboat named "Donkey Kong." They also named a pink, spherical video game character after him—Kirby—who would star in dozens of games, immortalizing the lawyer who saved their empire.

Who Owns King Kong Today?

Today, King Kong's rights are scattered across Hollywood:

Universal Studios operates King Kong theme park attractions with rights obtained from Richard Cooper.

Cooper's heirs retain certain publishing rights for King Kong books and comics.

Warner Bros, through corporate acquisitions, controls the original RKO film rights.

What exactly Universal bought remains sealed in contracts.

The great irony? A character born from one man's vision has become a fractured legal entity. King Kong's copyright has been torn apart and distributed across Hollywood—as if the great ape himself had grabbed it in both hands and ripped it to pieces in his final rage.

What started as a Dutch officer stumbling upon a real monster in an Indonesian jungle became one of cinema's most enduring myths—and copyright law's most magnificent mess.