I do not agree with Bitshares Music/Peertracks current model/Better Suggestions

[sschechter]

Remember, decentralization often has high costs.  Centralized companies and the blockchain can have symbiotic relationships.  Just because something theoretically could be decentralized, doesn't necessarily mean it should.  Especially for music - BitShares Music and Peertracks are trying to make a profitable company, not a one Currency to Rule Them All.

Anyways, I'm glad to hear that streaming will be offered.  Personally, I would like to see a free ad supported streaming version, and a paid ad free version.  Additionally, the user should have the ability to purchase a lossless high quality version.  And it would really be gravy if an artist can optionally offer resample permission with the purchase of a song, or with an additional fee.  That permission of course would be logged in the blockchain, and users with permission can be publicly verified.  I don't think artist sample clearance has been done before this simple and elegantly, and the ease of use may actually encourage good market behavior (and garner positive press)

Add supported free version: average quality MP3 files
Paid subscription: high quality MP3 or greater
Paid individual songs: highest quality, no loss of recorded information, always available for immediate download
Paid re-usage rights

I also think BitShares music is perfect for the 'blockchain referral program', similar to what MethodX has proposed elsewhere in the forum.  Artists who sign up other artists with PeerTracks get to receive a small cut of their friends fees - but this has to be done in a way that is mutually beneficial for all parties.  Perhaps segregating a cut of the network fees into a bonus pool, in which referers take a cut proportional to the popularity of their referred.  The bonus has to be big enough to incentive people inviting their friends, but not too big in which it creates a profits hierarchy.  No MLM, just good ole fashioned refer a friend.  I think you get the point for now, but if there is interest, we can extrapolate on this idea and brainstorm ways to make it work.

Anyways, we all know this has huge potential.  Lets make this thing work!

[VoR0220]

Here's a question. Is it possible to have a decentralized verification system for artist and songs that also prevents fraud without limiting the playback software/hardware?

Yes. My way would start off with some centralized features but gradually get rid of them once a majority of artists were signed onto the protocol. After that it becomes a matter of telling artists that they are responsible for their own security in what gets uploaded and what doesn't and that the protocol is not responsible if you are hacked and the file is distributed on the platform.

There is very much a way to check for copies of music that is fraudulent. It's called audio fingerprinting and it's not beyond the scope of possibility to make a database and then check for replicas with it. These work 100% of the time when scanning the file from a harddrive in its full format.

The question now becomes what to do about artists that are already established that haven't signed on. Who's to stop someone from putting their files in a database and then claiming it as their own? We can do this by establishing a vote out system granted to the shareholders across the network that would allow artist files to be transferred to another address plus the currency in the fraudulent account. If Bitshares Music/Peertracks owns 50% of the shares, then this is easily achievable at first. Of course this goes against the tenants of decentralization, but the idea is to set a time table to eventually phase out the hold on the network.

In conclusion. Yes. It's very doable. Don't know why I'm the only one that sees it.

[Pheonike]

Here's a question. Is it possible to have a decentralized verification system for artist and songs that also prevents fraud without limiting the playback software/hardware?

[VoR0220]

I'll make this it's own thread once we have a definite mechanism.

But I think everyone will be glad to know that PeerTracks will be incorporating streaming from the get-go.

It will be a subscription model.

We are in R&D mode right now. Looking into Open Transactions, Hyperledger, flattr and reading up on all that fun royalties stuff haha

The easiest model to implement right now would be the subscription model where the user puts say 10$ a month for unlimited streaming.

The ledger keeps track of every song he listens to in his month.
Take the amount of songs he listened to this month. Say 200.
10$/200 plays = 0.05 BitUSD per play.

The ledger is read and PeerTracks sends 0.05 BitUSD to, and only to, the artists that where played by this user that month.

this is the simplified version. Since artists that have artistcoins will have a % going into the coin buy back mechanism.

This is still just in brainstorming mode. We have to see what is scalable and what is even possible in the world of royalty payments.

Just a heads up that we are looking at streaming being incorporated IN the MVP. So far (unless Open Transactions can change the game) the streaming option would be centralized. All the rest still stays on blockchain, no funds held by peertracks. The subscription streaming plan would be something done by PeerTracks though, meaning it would collect funds, and then pay the proper people. Although the ledger is public so we can't screw the artist over like many other services do.

Don't take this post as gospel btw! This is like.. 24 hours after we decided to incorporate streaming into the MVP haha

Thanks for the response Cob,

Don't understand why you can't decentralize the streaming model. This is meant to be a decentralized platform. Why is there so much centralization going on? Especially when the technology to feasibly do this is there. Still also don't understand why you can't incorporate something (if you must have us pay for streaming services) along the line of credit for transaction fees paid in. That would seem to be another way you could decentralize it.

Something tells me that there are legal constraints at hand. Which if this is the case, would you mind informing us what could happen if this is decentralized?

[Riverhead]

I don't mind $10 a month since you can save playlists offline. This allows me to "stream" at home, road trips, flying, etc. My playlists if bought by track would be thousands and thousands. That pays for a lot of streaming.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

[oco101]

I used to pay for LastFM about 3$ a month, and that was ok this as high that I will pay a month. I will never pay 10$ to Spotify that is for sure, heck it cost more than Netflix. I know your 10$/ month  was just an example but I think it is to much.
Please be Netflix don't be Blockbuster

[donkeypong]

Sounds good. I worry that if it's ONLY streaming and not direct sales that some people won't pony up the $10. Would be nice to have both available so people could buy a single song if they wanted. But streaming seems to be the fad these days, so if that's what people want and a simple way to start, then it's cool with me.

[xeroc]

wow .. thanks for the (draft) update ..

The ledger is read and PeerTracks sends 0.05 BitUSD to, and only to, the artists that where played by this user that month.

that's centralized and difficult to implement transparently IMHO .. but I think that is ok as long as the streaming platform itself is (or has to be) centralized ..
I should definitely start reading into maidsaife/storj and figure out if these offer a solution for a decentralized streaming with "pay options"

[cob]

I'll make this it's own thread once we have a definite mechanism.

But I think everyone will be glad to know that PeerTracks will be incorporating streaming from the get-go.

It will be a subscription model.

We are in R&D mode right now. Looking into Open Transactions, Hyperledger, flattr and reading up on all that fun royalties stuff haha

The easiest model to implement right now would be the subscription model where the user puts say 10$ a month for unlimited streaming.

The ledger keeps track of every song he listens to in his month.
Take the amount of songs he listened to this month. Say 200.
10$/200 plays = 0.05 BitUSD per play.

The ledger is read and PeerTracks sends 0.05 BitUSD to, and only to, the artists that where played by this user that month.

this is the simplified version. Since artists that have artistcoins will have a % going into the coin buy back mechanism.

This is still just in brainstorming mode. We have to see what is scalable and what is even possible in the world of royalty payments.

Just a heads up that we are looking at streaming being incorporated IN the MVP. So far (unless Open Transactions can change the game) the streaming option would be centralized. All the rest still stays on blockchain, no funds held by peertracks. The subscription streaming plan would be something done by PeerTracks though, meaning it would collect funds, and then pay the proper people. Although the ledger is public so we can't screw the artist over like many other services do.

Don't take this post as gospel btw! This is like.. 24 hours after we decided to incorporate streaming into the MVP haha

[VoR0220]

People buying music online has begun to fall because ppl dont want to pay and they want to get free stuff. however, peertracks you can profit. this is about a fan supports artists and gain huge profits. have you ever been to a concert or live show? Say MJ is alive, and he blogged those MJ fans should support him buy his peertrack coins, what you think would happen? that his fan would ignore his message or something else?

I've been to and played many concerts. People can be fans and still not purchase the music. Mostly because they can get it for free. What they can't get for free is a concert, a shirt, art, or a chance to hang with their favorite artist. Hence why many artists are learning to embrace those models to sell themselves and fund their living. I would like for the model to take this into account.

There are reasons for why people buy CDs. Mostly it's sound quality related/audiophiles. This has also sparked the intrigue in vinyl amongst young hipsters.

One thing's for sure. Something needs to be implemented in the protocol to ensure top audio quality.

seeing this article here, I'm curious now how old the people who think that we should be selling the music are? Anybody like to share? I'm 21.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/15/tech/web/music-streaming/

i guess mostly ppl around ur age or above at least. Peertracks i think is an investment and business. i doubt teenagers are more likely to know any business, i mean most teenagers.

You'd be surprised. I always viewed my band as a business. I was 16 when I started it. Granted it failed, but such is life. Don't be so quick to throw off what may be the largest customer.

[kickky]

People buying music online has begun to fall because ppl dont want to pay and they want to get free stuff. however, peertracks you can profit. this is about a fan supports artists and gain huge profits. have you ever been to a concert or live show? Say MJ is alive, and he blogged those MJ fans should support him buy his peertrack coins, what you think would happen? that his fan would ignore his message or something else?

I've been to and played many concerts. People can be fans and still not purchase the music. Mostly because they can get it for free. What they can't get for free is a concert, a shirt, art, or a chance to hang with their favorite artist. Hence why many artists are learning to embrace those models to sell themselves and fund their living. I would like for the model to take this into account.

There are reasons for why people buy CDs. Mostly it's sound quality related/audiophiles. This has also sparked the intrigue in vinyl amongst young hipsters.

One thing's for sure. Something needs to be implemented in the protocol to ensure top audio quality.

seeing this article here, I'm curious now how old the people who think that we should be selling the music are? Anybody like to share? I'm 21.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/15/tech/web/music-streaming/

i guess mostly ppl around ur age or above at least. Peertracks i think is an investment and business. i doubt teenagers are more likely to know any business, i mean most teenagers.

[donkeypong]

I've been to and played many concerts. People can be fans and still not purchase the music. Mostly because they can get it for free. What they can't get for free is a concert, a shirt, art, or a chance to hang with their favorite artist. Hence why many artists are learning to embrace those models to sell themselves and fund their living. I would like for the model to take this into account.

I'm sure once the model is up and running, it can be tweaked for video, streaming music, playlists, etc., but sales is definitely a good place to start. Music sales are still worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 billion in revenue each year. Plenty of potential to tap into there. If no one bought music, there wouldn't be many bands, since T-shirt sales and the like are only a fraction of the market. Those things are good, but they are no replacement for the revenue from music itself. I buy music because I like it and I want to support good music. I even buy extra CDs and MP3s and give them to people to help promote bands I like. I think struggling bands with good quality music will be thrilled about PeerNotes/BitShares Music and I'll be thrilled to have some stake in the success of my favorite bands.

Age: Over the hill, so I guess I don't count. Then again, most teens and young twenties are broke anyway...if you had money, you'd be buying music!  

[Riverhead]

In a Mumble chat Cob mentioned that the artists will be free to use their coins in a number of creative ways.

Examples:

- A custom artist webpage experience depending on how many coins you own.
- Top 25 coin holders get to meet the band back stage
- Top 100 coin holders get free concert tickets
- top 10 coin holders get early access to song releases
-? ? ?

Since music is sold with bitUSD which is aquirred via Notes (like BTSX/bitUSD) the revenue/investment proposition of an artistcoin is going to be all about perks, scarcity, and music sales.

If One Direction is going to Chicago and they announce the top 100 ODCoin holders get access to a special viewing section or something you can bet there will be a spike in ODCoin price.

As for streaming...I tend to agree and I'm not that young (we'll just say over 40 ). I haven't bought one off music in years but I do pay subscription fees to Google Music, Spotify, and occasionally Pandora.

[VoR0220]

People buying music online has begun to fall because ppl dont want to pay and they want to get free stuff. however, peertracks you can profit. this is about a fan supports artists and gain huge profits. have you ever been to a concert or live show? Say MJ is alive, and he blogged those MJ fans should support him buy his peertrack coins, what you think would happen? that his fan would ignore his message or something else?

I've been to and played many concerts. People can be fans and still not purchase the music. Mostly because they can get it for free. What they can't get for free is a concert, a shirt, art, or a chance to hang with their favorite artist. Hence why many artists are learning to embrace those models to sell themselves and fund their living. I would like for the model to take this into account.

There are reasons for why people buy CDs. Mostly it's sound quality related/audiophiles. This has also sparked the intrigue in vinyl amongst young hipsters.

One thing's for sure. Something needs to be implemented in the protocol to ensure top audio quality.

seeing this article here, I'm curious now how old the people who think that we should be selling the music are? Anybody like to share? I'm 21.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/15/tech/web/music-streaming/

[donkeypong]

There is still an ENORMOUS demand for music sales. It's a perfectly fine place to start. The model will evolve, I'm sure.

[kickky]

I have not received a message from Cob in some time and I see he has been posting on here, so I figured I'd get some feedback from you guys and what you think.

My concerns with this current model is that the DAC and Peertracks seems to be following an outdated model. That is a system where people buy music. People buying music online has begun to fall:
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/5855162/digital-music-sales-decrease-for-first-time-in-2013

I attribute this mostly due to the rise in streaming and the popularity of that model. But even then that is a centralized model that has treated artists unfairly due to the holding of intellectual property by large publishing companies, such as spotify distributing the revenues at different rates for artists in bigger labels.

This concept has the ability to change the game in that regard. Not only could we make a platform where every artist is paid at the same rate for the same merit but we could do it without advertising and therefore attract millions of listeners. Essentially, we should be looking at a platform that allows for people to invest in artists who distribute their music for free and then have the DAC protocol pay people according to how popular the artists are in the network. Let's be real here. Young people today buy music less and less and prefer to torrent it. However torrenting takes time and carries legal problems. If we can get this out of the way, we've stumbled on a gold mine. In addition, I think I've found a method in some old technology that would allow us to stream the music or download it. It's called Peercasting and functions like a P2P TCP server (if you're not a techie, that's basically the protocol that your Youtube videos use). This could further be enacted by having people sign off on whether a certain packet of data was distributed.

Another thing I've seen a lot of people bring up that you haven't addressed is the problem of people copying other people's music on the DAC and just taking it and distributing it. There's no way to get around that in the modern day and age, so why not build a protocol around the assumptions and encourage it in a way that allows artists and shareholders to profit? We could do this by creating a P2P database in the DAC protocol that would create audio fingerprints for songs uploaded and for each upload check the database to make sure it's not replicated. There are ways to do this on a decentralized, P2P basis.

I like the idea of artistcoins. I did not like them at first, but I have bought onto the concept so to say. However, I'm not sure there is a truly clear cut mechanism for how they would work. I would propose a mechanism in the frame that I have whereby holders of artistcoins hold the responsibility of distributing music over the network (they are the only ones allowed to seed). An artistcoin would then function as a key allowing people to distribute a set chunk of data per block processed and would then gather transaction fees per block according to how many artistcoins they have for that song/album.

In addition there is something that could be utilized that would really draw artists in. The ability for us to process where certain people are transacting from allows us to collect ip Addresses. If we utilize this we can help artists create a geographical map of where they should tour based upon total streams from different addresses. This essentially functions like an enterprise planning tool and it would bring many artists into the network.

Does anybody think this is a better system? Does anyone have any criticism they would like to levy at this? I want this to work and I just don't see it working on the current platform it is heading in.

 People buying music online has begun to fall because ppl dont want to pay and they want to get free stuff. however, peertracks you can profit. this is about a fan supports artists and gain huge profits. have you ever been to a concert or live show? Say MJ is alive, and he blogged those MJ fans should support him buy his peertrack coins, what you think would happen? that his fan would ignore his message or something else?

[VoR0220]

I think your IP would be exposed to the peers you are connected to in the network, but not in a public manner on the chain. Those nodes would likely have to log the IPs connected to them in order to get that information. Even then, I don't think the peers can determine which transaction correlates to which IP. I don't see how you could link the purchase of a specific song to an IP address on chain w/o the inherent security issues but I am by no means an expert or versed in the bitshares_toolkit network code.

My question for the torrent style distribution is how could you prevent a copycat from listing music that isn't their own for stream in a decentralized manner? The artists would want to register and distribute their own artistcoin, but if Carl comes along and registers beyoncecoin and starts uploading / streaming Beyonce on the torrent network, how can we prevent that in the fully distributed system? A centralized service like PeerTracks solves this by being able to disallow fakes / copycats. Sure, someone could take the name an artist wanted to use for a coin and register it as an asset. But the actual distribution can be restricted to music of verified musicians. Maybe artistcoin names could be auctioned DNS style?

I think the user experience would be simplified a lot using the centralized service like PeerTracks that can be accessed as a web app. Then the user doesn't need to interact with the BTS Music client. It seems to me a simple web experience would drive more mainstream users to use the system then dealing with the torrent streaming stuff in a client. It may seem pretty basic for this community but there is definitely a large number of people who aren't exactly sure what torrent networks are or how to use it them. Good food for thought, though. Maybe a separate app could be built that utilizes the Music DAC and facilitates something similar to what you are describing.

Hmmm...will have to look into the process for the IP address stuff. May have to rethink that.

As for the potential for copying, that's why I've been saying that we should use an audio fingerprinting database. You know these as apps like Shazam. However, ours would be more thorough and scan the entire song so that we could have exact songs fingerprinted. If somebody tries to upload an already fingerprinted song, then the uploader is denied uploadship. That's why I'm saying that we don't need a centralized database.

The problems with this approach are for the artists that are already established that are unaware of this application and the stealing of their work and putting it on here. Now we have a problem of how do we get rid of them? Personally, I'd propose a voting system for deletion or transfer of a wallet's contents to another wallet in the case of a stolen song. Perhaps have Bitcoin Music walk the dark line and hold a 50% voting power for a while in order to ensure the stability of the system. I definitely see the appeal of a centralized server here, but I think we can do much better.

As for the torrenting/streaming stuff. That's the thing. We can make it incredibly simple to use. Check out Tribler. They use the protocol that I'm talking about. Now granted, they use it for TV, but it's not that different to hook up a database and change the format of the file it's supporting and keep the concept of the data transfer intact. What I'm emphasizing is that it's FREE. And it profits the artists! That alone should sell a lot of people. If we get down a friendly user interface, we're golden.

[robrigo]

I think your IP would be exposed to the peers you are connected to in the network, but not in a public manner on the chain. Those nodes would likely have to log the IPs connected to them in order to get that information. Even then, I don't think the peers can determine which transaction correlates to which IP. I don't see how you could link the purchase of a specific song to an IP address on chain w/o the inherent security issues but I am by no means an expert or versed in the bitshares_toolkit network code.

My question for the torrent style distribution is how could you prevent a copycat from listing music that isn't their own for stream in a decentralized manner? The artists would want to register and distribute their own artistcoin, but if Carl comes along and registers beyoncecoin and starts uploading / streaming Beyonce on the torrent network, how can we prevent that in the fully distributed system? A centralized service like PeerTracks solves this by being able to disallow fakes / copycats. Sure, someone could take the name an artist wanted to use for a coin and register it as an asset. But the actual distribution can be restricted to music of verified musicians. Maybe artistcoin names could be auctioned DNS style?

I think the user experience would be simplified a lot using the centralized service like PeerTracks that can be accessed as a web app. Then the user doesn't need to interact with the BTS Music client. It seems to me a simple web experience would drive more mainstream users to use the system then dealing with the torrent streaming stuff in a client. It may seem pretty basic for this community but there is definitely a large number of people who aren't exactly sure what torrent networks are or how to use it them. Good food for thought, though. Maybe a separate app could be built that utilizes the Music DAC and facilitates something similar to what you are describing.

[VoR0220]

I spoke with cob in Vegas for a while (we also were lucky to be next to each other on the plane home lol) and he mentioned something about the idea of also providing an incentive to users who create the best playlists on PeerTracks, with user curated playlists like 8tracks.com has. Not sure if that was on the road map explicitly or just brainstorming but I think that would be successful. Google Music All Access streaming is human curated streams. That's what Beats Music was supposed to be as well. Now there is more reason to participate than just reputation on the site, as users can get rewarded for curating excellent playlists.

I could see the geographic tool being useful but that seems like something that would have to be off chain, as IP addresses aren't exposed AFAIK. So PeerTracks, as a centralized service, could provide that using the IP addresses of their users but a decentralized version just based off users in the DAC seems infeasible / more complex. You'd compromise security by linking users to IP addresses on chain.

IP Addresses, to my knowledge, are exposed when you make a transaction. I could be wrong there, but that was my understanding. If anyone would like to clarify and make me feel like a bonehead, that would be more than welcome. 

I really do like the playlist idea though. That is neat.

Starting a streaming services requires a lot of bandwidth and other infrastructure. It is hard to anticipate those cost without knowing what the demand on the service will be. Streaming can added afterwards when other parts of the platform are more solid. There's a lot of moving parts here and the average consumer isn't as tolerate as us cryto-nerds who understand how hard this stuff is to get right.

The thing is though, we have all the bandwidth we need with a peercast system made up of all the people who are investing in the artist. We just need to structure the incentive system properly.

Here's what I was thinking. You buy an artistcoin and this gives you the ability to seed/swarm (like Bittorrent protocol) a particular file of music. We limit the amount they are allowed to stream according to the demands of the network. So for example, we buy an artist coin and this gives us the ability to stream Drake "Hold on we're going home" at 1mb per block in the blockchain. We set the protocol to automatically look for clients in demand of stream and to give the amount of information demanded. The user signs a digital signature with the person distributing the stream that says they received it. The distributor is now entitled to a part of the pot made from transaction fees + inflation.

Am I making any sense?

[Pheonike]

Starting a streaming services requires a lot of bandwidth and other infrastructure. It is hard to anticipate those cost without knowing what the demand on the service will be. Streaming can added afterwards when other parts of the platform are more solid. There's a lot of moving parts here and the average consumer isn't as tolerate as us cryto-nerds who understand how hard this stuff is to get right.

[robrigo]

they could easily adapte to streaming. so dosen't matter if they want to sell or stream the songs.

That's what cob stated somewhere .. however they will start with the "dying" branch and (will have to) move over to a streaming platform ..

they could easily adapte to streaming. so dosen't matter if they want to sell or stream the songs.

EXACTLY!

It's not in the plans thus far. I would think if you're trying to get this off the ground, you would want to get a few popular musicians as well as younger more underground musicians to sign on as well as attract a base of young people to use it. I think the majority of young people don't buy music. I do however think that they buy a lot of merch and go to a lot of shows. I think that's what the purchase should be focusing on. It just makes more sense to start from a streaming platform than a buying platform.

Side note:
Nobody has commented on the geographic mapping tool yet. Does anybody think that this would help bring artists on board?

I spoke with cob in Vegas for a while (we also were lucky to be next to each other on the plane home lol) and he mentioned something about the idea of also providing an incentive to users who create the best playlists on PeerTracks, with user curated playlists like 8tracks.com has. Not sure if that was on the road map explicitly or just brainstorming but I think that would be successful. Google Music All Access streaming is human curated streams. That's what Beats Music was supposed to be as well. Now there is more reason to participate than just reputation on the site, as users can get rewarded for curating excellent playlists.

I could see the geographic tool being useful but that seems like something that would have to be off chain, as IP addresses aren't exposed AFAIK. So PeerTracks, as a centralized service, could provide that using the IP addresses of their users but a decentralized version just based off users in the DAC seems infeasible / more complex. You'd compromise security by linking users to IP addresses on chain.

[Pheonike]

The PeerTracks is needed for the vetting the artist. They can offer the artist verification and vetting function that's needed to help prevent impersonators. You can verified accounts like twitter.

[Mysto]

they could easily adapte to streaming. so dosen't matter if they want to sell or stream the songs.

That's what cob stated somewhere .. however they will start with the "dying" branch and (will have to) move over to a streaming platform ..

Yea I also think they should start with a streaming platform then if necessary move to a selling digital copies platform.

[VoR0220]

they could easily adapte to streaming. so dosen't matter if they want to sell or stream the songs.

That's what cob stated somewhere .. however they will start with the "dying" branch and (will have to) move over to a streaming platform ..

they could easily adapte to streaming. so dosen't matter if they want to sell or stream the songs.

EXACTLY!

It's not in the plans thus far. I would think if you're trying to get this off the ground, you would want to get a few popular musicians as well as younger more underground musicians to sign on as well as attract a base of young people to use it. I think the majority of young people don't buy music. I do however think that they buy a lot of merch and go to a lot of shows. I think that's what the purchase should be focusing on. It just makes more sense to start from a streaming platform than a buying platform.

Side note:
Nobody has commented on the geographic mapping tool yet. Does anybody think that this would help bring artists on board?

[xeroc]

they could easily adapte to streaming. so dosen't matter if they want to sell or stream the songs.

That's what cob stated somewhere .. however they will start with the "dying" branch and (will have to) move over to a streaming platform ..

[Shentist]

they could easily adapte to streaming. so dosen't matter if they want to sell or stream the songs.

[VoR0220]

The points made about buying music being a dying concept- I've wondered myself what % on average of a musician's income comes from online music sales. The price point of the current digital music distribution model is a major turn off for me- I might buy a digital album or two per year for musicians I really like, but $10-15 always seems lot a lot for digital media. If this price point came down to $5 or less on average for an album, I could see myself making more purchases. Especially if I know the artist is receiving most / all of that money. This is the possibility with PeerTracks.

I also think that musicians involved with the project would promote it directly to their fans as the best way to support their music, and I can definitely see musicians taking their own coin "to the next level" as far as incentivizing or interacting with fans. At the end of the day, BitShares Music / PeerTracks will hinge on the artists that decide to use it for distribution, and getting the point across to music fans that they can profit by finding the best talent on the DAC and holding their coins.

Another thing I've seen a lot of people bring up that you haven't addressed is the problem of people copying other people's music on the DAC and just taking it and distributing it. There's no way to get around that in the modern day and age, so why not build a protocol around the assumptions and encourage it in a way that allows artists and shareholders to profit? We could do this by creating a P2P database in the DAC protocol that would create audio fingerprints for songs uploaded and for each upload check the database to make sure it's not replicated. There are ways to do this on a decentralized, P2P basis.

From my understanding, the audio files won't be stored on chain, but rather PeerTracks will be authorizing downloads from their servers. Their app watches the blockchain for a music sale, then allows that account in PeerTracks to D/L the file. I assume that musicians that wish to use the PeerTracks service will have to do some form of verification to prove that they are the actual musician they claim to be.

Most artists make squat off of their record sales. Those usually go to the record label. Same with the streams. I can see people like yourself who will purchase the song for permanent use and I suppose that should be factored into it. But I still see the majority of the populace going on a streaming basis, and reluctant to pay in the future for music, hence why I advocate a model based on streaming, with a supplement for fully downloading to be purchased.

As for Peertracks authorizing downloads, that's a centralized institution distributing the music. I think we should aim for a decentralized database with the songs available to stream. In other words, why not integrate the platforms and keep the entire process decentralized? The problems with this are with the possibility of clutter and people claiming that they have new music when they don't. We could confront this (imperfectly) with a voting system combined with audio fingerprints. We could have it where a certain number of votes from shareholders could knock a certain track out of the database.

What do you guys think of this?

[robrigo]

The points made about buying music being a dying concept- I've wondered myself what % on average of a musician's income comes from online music sales. The price point of the current digital music distribution model is a major turn off for me- I might buy a digital album or two per year for musicians I really like, but $10-15 always seems lot a lot for digital media. If this price point came down to $5 or less on average for an album, I could see myself making more purchases. Especially if I know the artist is receiving most / all of that money. This is the possibility with PeerTracks.

I also think that musicians involved with the project would promote it directly to their fans as the best way to support their music, and I can definitely see musicians taking their own coin "to the next level" as far as incentivizing or interacting with fans. At the end of the day, BitShares Music / PeerTracks will hinge on the artists that decide to use it for distribution, and getting the point across to music fans that they can profit by finding the best talent on the DAC and holding their coins.

Another thing I've seen a lot of people bring up that you haven't addressed is the problem of people copying other people's music on the DAC and just taking it and distributing it. There's no way to get around that in the modern day and age, so why not build a protocol around the assumptions and encourage it in a way that allows artists and shareholders to profit? We could do this by creating a P2P database in the DAC protocol that would create audio fingerprints for songs uploaded and for each upload check the database to make sure it's not replicated. There are ways to do this on a decentralized, P2P basis.

From my understanding, the audio files won't be stored on chain, but rather PeerTracks will be authorizing downloads from their servers. Their app watches the blockchain for a music sale, then allows that account in PeerTracks to D/L the file. I assume that musicians that wish to use the PeerTracks service will have to do some form of verification to prove that they are the actual musician they claim to be.

[VoR0220]

Surely the point of PeerTracks is choice - one option being to support the artist direct. It goes beyond the normal that's available atm and cuts out the middlemen who are traditionally leeching off those they represent, whether intentionally or not. You've just edited after my replying but I can't see what's not to like.

I don't see how one is not choosing to support the artist by purchasing "shares"/artistcoins. I don't see why there isn't more focus on the shares/equity than there is on who gets what once its time to cash the coin in.

[Akado]

one of my concerns exactly. buying music is pretty much a 'dying' concept. streaming came to replace it, as you can see with spotify for example.

[davidpbrown]

Surely the point of PeerTracks is choice - one option being to support the artist direct. It goes beyond the normal that's available atm and cuts out the middlemen who are traditionally leeching off those they represent, whether intentionally or not. You've just edited after my replying but I can't see what's not to like.

[VoR0220]

I have not received a message from Cob in some time and I see he has been posting on here, so I figured I'd get some feedback from you guys and what you think.

My concerns with this current model is that the DAC and Peertracks seems to be following an outdated model. That is a system where people buy music. People buying music online has begun to fall:
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/5855162/digital-music-sales-decrease-for-first-time-in-2013

I attribute this mostly due to the rise in streaming and the popularity of that model. But even then that is a centralized model that has treated artists unfairly due to the holding of intellectual property by large publishing companies, such as spotify distributing the revenues at different rates for artists in bigger labels.

This concept has the ability to change the game in that regard. Not only could we make a platform where every artist is paid at the same rate for the same merit but we could do it without advertising and therefore attract millions of listeners. Essentially, we should be looking at a platform that allows for people to invest in artists who distribute their music for free and then have the DAC protocol pay people according to how popular the artists are in the network. Let's be real here. Young people today buy music less and less and prefer to torrent it. However torrenting takes time and carries legal problems. If we can get this out of the way, we've stumbled on a gold mine. In addition, I think I've found a method in some old technology that would allow us to stream the music or download it. It's called Peercasting and functions like a P2P TCP server (if you're not a techie, that's basically the protocol that your Youtube videos use). This could further be enacted by having people sign off on whether a certain packet of data was distributed.

Another thing I've seen a lot of people bring up that you haven't addressed is the problem of people copying other people's music on the DAC and just taking it and distributing it. There's no way to get around that in the modern day and age, so why not build a protocol around the assumptions and encourage it in a way that allows artists and shareholders to profit? We could do this by creating a P2P database in the DAC protocol that would create audio fingerprints for songs uploaded and for each upload check the database to make sure it's not replicated. There are ways to do this on a decentralized, P2P basis.

I like the idea of artistcoins. I did not like them at first, but I have bought onto the concept so to say. However, I'm not sure there is a truly clear cut mechanism for how they would work. I would propose a mechanism in the frame that I have whereby holders of artistcoins hold the responsibility of distributing music over the network (they are the only ones allowed to seed). An artistcoin would then function as a key allowing people to distribute a set chunk of data per block processed and would then gather transaction fees per block according to how many artistcoins they have for that song/album.

In addition there is something that could be utilized that would really draw artists in. The ability for us to process where certain people are transacting from allows us to collect ip Addresses. If we utilize this we can help artists create a geographical map of where they should tour based upon total streams from different addresses. This essentially functions like an enterprise planning tool and it would bring many artists into the network.

Does anybody think this is a better system? Does anyone have any criticism they would like to levy at this? I want this to work and I just don't see it working on the current platform it is heading in.