Questions on the artistcoin details

[starspirit]

Suppose an artist raises funds through an initial sale of artist coins and then at some point down the track wants to raise some more. There may be circumstances where this is worthwhile - e.g. the development and promotion of a new album. But given the artist does not own any artist coins themselves (I am assuming) what is to incentivise them to not adversely impact existing artist coin holders through setting too low a price or too much dilution?

[VoR0220]

What's to stop someone from just streaming on loop 24/7 and gaming the system. That's why most streaming services use a subcription or avertising.

I should note in regards to the shares, we need a mechanism that will automatically divvy up part of the pot from the artist to the "shareholders". One way to do this would be to make shareholders exclusive seeders. This would mean they handle distribution of the artist content (along with the artist) through their bandwidth and CPU. Whenever somebody contributes to the distribution of content, there could be a digital signature signed off on saying that they did, and if consensus is released that they helped in creating an overall stream of the content, then they will be reimbursed from the pot. I know it's lacking on further technical details, but I think this is absolutely achievable and would carry over and be more legitimate/revolutionary than anything that requires payment.

But this helps to illustrate for the purpose of what you just brought up. If they're streaming the loop 24/7 are they not demanding a service? I don't think it's gaming the system really.

In terms of systematic upkeep, if there's not enough bandwidth to go around, then the system is overall slowed down because the data transfer won't be able to keep up. There will be more demand for people to join in to distribute, especially if more people are hogging the bandwidth distribution aspects and this will increase demand for shares in order to distribute more content.

In terms of market concentration, yes, a ton of bands could get a group together to just stream their music willy nilly. They could also hire hackers to run bots over the network and then stream the music. But the constraints of the network will likely still hold. There are other parts of this to look at, but I'm saying this is where the conversation should be at. Not talk about people buying music from a network. That's an outdated model and we have the technology to make torrenting/peercasting a profitable and useful tool with the emergence of cryptocurrency.

I'm thinking of this from the concept of a phone. A PC will always have free stream whatever music you want availability thanks to the advent of Spotify and Youtube. A phone does not have that due to restrictions on DRM that prevent willy nilly streaming on these mediums, hence the need to torrent and move those files into your phone. However, that is time costly and your network will bitch at you and perhaps throttle you. But if there was a mechanism whereby we could stream to phones, this would catch on very quickly, ESPECIALLY if it allows choice which is currently not being made available by modern mediums.

[Pheonike]

What's to stop someone from just streaming on loop 24/7 and gaming the system. That's why most streaming services use a subcription or avertising.

[VoR0220]

We reach a consensus mechanism of how many "transactions" of songs being played are created in a block. We then take all transaction fees from people spending their coins and collect this into a pot. (My personal preference from there would be to have some kind of constant inflation mechanism but that's neither here nor there, you could do this without it). From this pot, we note which addresses were called to play their "song" transactions, and then divy it up from the pot based on percentage to those respective addresses. Think of it like a decentralized spotify with no imbalances/favors towards popular artists in their rates. 

Any further questions/comments/concerns?

[oco101]

It seems everyone on here doesn't seem to be grasping the problem that this model seems to rely on people BUYING music (which they currently have little to no incentive to do). As I've stressed elsewhere on this forum. The best method would be through the buying of "artistcoins" (whatever you want to call the shares/dividends) for the artist made exclusive to the coins. Then issue out coins to peoplebased upon how many plays an artist gets and set these coins to automatically distribute in the protocol. You could do this through a peer casting mechanism and with people buying into artistcoins, you would likely be able to gather the overhead in order to make the network incredibly functional.

You issue the coin based how many plays the artist gets, then what ??  Sorry I'm not sure I understand the mechanism. Can you give a example  ?

[VoR0220]

It seems everyone on here doesn't seem to be grasping the problem that this model seems to rely on people BUYING music (which they currently have little to no incentive to do). As I've stressed elsewhere on this forum. The best method would be through the buying of "artistcoins" (whatever you want to call the shares/dividends) for the artist made exclusive to the coins. Then issue out coins to peoplebased upon how many plays an artist gets and set these coins to automatically distribute in the protocol. You could do this through a peer casting mechanism and with people buying into artistcoins, you would likely be able to gather the overhead in order to make the network incredibly functional.

[donkeypong]

It's probably not a good idea for artists to set the price for their songs because every artist is going to set the price higher than people are willing to pay.

How do you know? Some of them have never made any money from their music before. They may be glad to get a few cents and hope it takes off. Just look at 99-cent iTunes songs and 99-cent Kindle ebooks by indie authors. They can make a lot of money by keeping the price cheap and I think lots of people already know this. Those that set their prices too high will learn that the market won't support this except for established brands, and thus they will be forced to adjust. Even if the artists set the price, that is just inital trial and error. In reality, the market will set the price people are willing to pay.

[bitsapphire]

This is definitely one of the better threads on the forum. Keep the good questions and comments up!

Cob is busy with the conference so he should get back soon and answer all questions.

[oco101]

Some questions on the music sale proceeds:

Regarding the 2% that goes to the Notes holders - how does this work -  is it a case of buying back Notes in the market and then burning them?
Regarding the 18% that goes to buy back the artist coin in the market - is it burned also?

Thanks, I wasn't sure where to look up the answers.

This percentages are just a examples that Cob gave us I understand   this are not set in stone so they may change.

The 2% are transaction fee that are burned, not sure how they are burned
The 18% are not burned they are going to the seller of the artistcoin. What's burned it the artistcoin.

[luckybit]

Apple could not copy, because they take a huge cut off the margin. this is the opportunity of peertracks. not to greedy on the fee side and it could be a really great way to boost artists and activate their fans.

The way I see it happening is fans are artists and artists are fans. Fans and artists can work together on a project.

Suppose you're an artist and you release your project on Peertracks? Instead of just telling the fans to go market the product, you want the fans to become partners in the success of the project with you.

You want fans to make the album cover, music videos, press releases, and to share it on social media. How do you get the fans to work for you? You offer fans 50/50.

What is the best way to do this? Give fans 50% of the coins. All this salary stuff and artists determining splits is just going to leave room for artists to put their ego and greed before their project.

I do understand most artists don't understand crypto so there should be features for artists who don't get it. At the same time we should be encouraging artists to evolve their thinking a bit and not putting all the focus on artists who are behind the times.

[feedthemcake]

Q) So I see a talented artist's coins are really cheap so I spend some BitUSD to get them. I then want to spread the word to my friends on facebook, but they aren't into crypto so dont have any BitUSD. What do I do about this? Will PeerTracks accept credit cards as a substitute to buy BitUSD first?

Q) Im trying to fully understand the buy-back process. An artist initially offers 10000 coins at 1 dollar each for example, and half of then are bought up. The artist gets the usual 80% of each sale, but where does the 20% go to, as there are not yet any other coins for sale in the hands of users?
  -Do the 20% of the initial sales sit waiting to buy-back coins as soon as some of the initial buyers start selling?
  -What if the initial buyers sell their coins back undercutting the initial artist sell price of 1 dollar?

Q) How soon can we expect to see artists sign up to PeerTracks ? Any confirmed ones yet?

Thanks for any explanation on this.

I think it's a mistake to let artists try and set a price. The market should determine the price otherwise you'll have a lot of music which doesn't get purchased at all because artists set the wrong price.

With altcoins every altcoin finds it's price. How does an artistcoin find it's price? I think the way it should work is to just get rid of the whole salary stuff and just let artists use their own coins.

If you buy their coin you buy their song. The moment you redeem the coin then the coin is destroyed and you're left with the song. This way the more songs there are which get sold the less coins remain and the price of the song goes up as market and trading activity goes up.

What if a song is worth more than $1? The price can't go up beyond that even if demand suggests people would pay more than $1.

 

[luckybit]

Q) So I see a talented artist's coins are really cheap so I spend some BitUSD to get them. I then want to spread the word to my friends on facebook, but they aren't into crypto so dont have any BitUSD. What do I do about this? Will PeerTracks accept credit cards as a substitute to buy BitUSD first?

Q) Im trying to fully understand the buy-back process. An artist initially offers 10000 coins at 1 dollar each for example, and half of then are bought up. The artist gets the usual 80% of each sale, but where does the 20% go to, as there are not yet any other coins for sale in the hands of users?
  -Do the 20% of the initial sales sit waiting to buy-back coins as soon as some of the initial buyers start selling?
  -What if the initial buyers sell their coins back undercutting the initial artist sell price of 1 dollar?

Q) How soon can we expect to see artists sign up to PeerTracks ? Any confirmed ones yet?

Thanks for any explanation on this.

I think it's a mistake to let artists try and set a price. The market should determine the price otherwise you'll have a lot of music which doesn't get purchased at all because artists set the wrong price.

With altcoins every altcoin finds it's price. How does an artistcoin find it's price? I think the way it should work is to just get rid of the whole salary stuff and just let artists use their own coins.

If you buy their coin you buy their song. The moment you redeem the coin then the coin is destroyed and you're left with the song. This way the more songs there are which get sold the less coins remain and the price of the song goes up as market and trading activity goes up.

What if a song is worth more than $1? The price can't go up beyond that even if demand suggests people would pay more than $1. There has to be more options for artists on how to find the price.

1) Let artists choose to let the market find the price of the song.
2) Let artists choose to set the price themselves.
3) Let artists choose to let the fans set the price for them.

It's probably not a good idea for artists to set the price for their songs because every artist is going to set the price higher than people are willing to pay. The only way they could do this is if the songs are for mixtape where in the IPO the mixtape is extremely cheap because no one has heard it before and then over time the fans turn the mixtape into an album by working with the artist to develop a marketing plan, album cover, video, and perhaps more.

Fans aren't going to develop an artist if they can't either set the price themselves and determine a split which favors the fans, or let the market set the price. In my opinion it would be suicide for an artist to try to sell a mixtape at an 80/20 split with fans. The fans should get 60 and the artist 40 because typically a mixtape doesn't get sold at all and is just downloaded.

If it's an album where the artist did all the work, the cover art, the video, and just needs the fans to tell their friends, in that scenario I think the artist can do 50/50 or even 80/20 because the artist did all the work and just needs the fans to share the song.

I think the default split should be 50/50 because I think a lot of artists will fail if the default is 80/20. Fans will put all their effort into the artists offering 50/50 splits or better and unless the artist offering 80/20 already has a machine behind them they'll have trouble. If NAS or Snoop Dogg were to go on Peertracks and offer 80/20 to the fans then I'd think it was fair but independent artists aren't going to get away with that split.

[starspirit]

Some questions on the music sale proceeds:

Regarding the 2% that goes to the Notes holders - how does this work -  is it a case of buying back Notes in the market and then burning them?
Regarding the 18% that goes to buy back the artist coin in the market - is it burned also?

Thanks, I wasn't sure where to look up the answers.

[Shentist]

Apple could not copy, because they take a huge cut off the margin. this is the opportunity of peertracks. not to greedy on the fee side and it could be a really great way to boost artists and activate their fans.

[oco101]

They will not support they competitor. They will just use the Blockhain Music mechanism, that is already in place and have all the advantages. You can look at the different websites like different music labels. They will fight to make artist use there website to issue artiscoin.  Say PeerTracks China opens up, and they will mainly attract chinese artist to issues artistcoins and people buy music on their website. PeerTrack Us will attract people from US etc. The artist will chose where to issue he's artistcoin and most importantly to upload his music.
Sure Apple could do all that in centralize server, but the way it works now I wonder how much of that 1 dollar goes directly to the artist and how much goes to Apple ? Bitshare gives directly to the artist no middleman no big labels taking big cut etc.

Yes the artist reward model is innovative, but the blockchain itself does not provide any advantage to a new music distribution service wanting to use the same model, because by adopting the existing blockchain the new service reduces their opportunities for user lock-in. Businesses want to create barriers to entry for their competitors, not strengthen the competitor's positions. And yes for iTunes or whoever to adopt the NOTES blockchain would strengthen PeerTracks positition because they own a large amount of NOTES shares, and the new guy owns zero.

Edit: Actually I do agree that the blockchain would be beneficial for the artist because money to buy artistcoins can come in from (possibly) multiple music distribution sites, as well as the world of BitUSD crypto. Thats definitely a positive.

PeerTracks does not holds notes. There is  Bitshare Music foundation that will hold 10 % the rest is going to the users .
But you right they could just clone Bitshare Music 2.0 and do it there, but now they have other problem they will face. Notes 2.0 distribution, imagine Apple wants to do that and they take 90% off  Notes 2.0 ?

You right let's wait and see Cob view on that.

[speedy]

They will not support they competitor. They will just use the Blockhain Music mechanism, that is already in place and have all the advantages. You can look at the different websites like different music labels. They will fight to make artist use there website to issue artiscoin.  Say PeerTracks China opens up, and they will mainly attract chinese artist to issues artistcoins and people buy music on their website. PeerTrack Us will attract people from US etc. The artist will chose where to issue he's artistcoin and most importantly to upload his music.
Sure Apple could do all that in centralize server, but the way it works now I wonder how much of that 1 dollar goes directly to the artist and how much goes to Apple ? Bitshare gives directly to the artist no middleman no big labels taking big cut etc.

Yes the artist reward model is innovative, but the blockchain itself does not provide any advantage to a new music distribution service wanting to use the same model, because by adopting the existing blockchain the new service reduces their opportunities for user lock-in. Businesses want to create barriers to entry for their competitors, not strengthen the competitor's positions. And yes for iTunes or whoever to adopt the NOTES blockchain would strengthen PeerTracks positition because they own a large amount of NOTES shares, and the new guy owns zero.

Edit: I do however agree that the blockchain would be beneficial for the artist because money to buy artistcoins can come in from (possibly) multiple music distribution sites, as well as the world of BitUSD crypto. Thats definitely a positive. But we have already agreed that most of the money is going to be coming in from fiat anyway.

[oco101]

If PeerTracks will be successful there will be probably other PeerTracks sites that will open on Bitshare Music blockchain, different artists will issues Artistcoin in different PeerTracks clones websites that will be all over the world, diffrent regulations. So you'll have redundancy

If other PeerTracks-like sites opened up they would be competing with the original one (obviously), so why would they want to use the BitShares Music blockchain and support their competitors? They have zero incentive to do so. A competitor like iTunes could copy the business model and issue artistcoins just on their centralized website, which is where 99% of music fans will want to trade them anyway.

They will not support they competitor. They will just use the Blockhain Music mechanism, that is already in place and have all the advantages. You can look at the different websites like different music labels. They will fight to make artist use there website to issue artiscoin.  Say PeerTracks China opens up, and they will mainly attract chinese artist to issues artistcoins and people buy music on their website. PeerTrack Us will attract people from US etc. The artist will chose where to issue he's artistcoin and most importantly to upload his music.
Sure Apple could do all that in centralize server, but the way it works now I wonder how much of that 1 dollar goes directly to the artist and how much goes to Apple ? Bitshare gives directly to the artist no middleman no big labels taking big cut etc.

[speedy]

If PeerTracks will be successful there will be probably other PeerTracks sites that will open on Bitshare Music blockchain, different artists will issues Artistcoin in different PeerTracks clones websites that will be all over the world, diffrent regulations. So you'll have redundancy

If other PeerTracks-like sites opened up they would be competing with the original one (obviously), so why would they want to use the BitShares Music blockchain and support their competitors? They have zero incentive to do so. A competitor like iTunes could copy the business model and issue artistcoins just on their centralized website, which is where 99% of music fans will want to trade them anyway.

[oco101]

Yes I completely misunderstood your question ....

Yes I would like to hear Cob elaborate on that.

Also: saying that a blockchain backend is protection against PeerTracks being taken doesnt really stack up: if that were to happen then the NOTES shares would tank, and buy-backs from music sales would stop.

So let say PeerTracks is closed down. The Notes will tank buy-backs will stop. But I could open a PeerTracks 2.0 and in the Bitshare Music blockchain I have all the information need it to continue normal operation, because I have all the information on artistcoin holder, Notes Holder and bitUSD holders. In fact if PeerTracks goes down people will still have ther bitUSD and they could still trade artistcoin, the only think that will stop will be the buy back mechanism witch will resume as soon as PeerTrack 2.0 is up and running. 

in my understanding the Artist should set a fixed amount he want to get say 70 Cent after taxes.

the bitshares music blockchain now needs an API who peertracks is using and anyone else can use to sell the music. would be more sense.

Anybody could use Bitshare Music API, but don't forget that the d music will be on the PeerTracks web site not on the blockchain, So the artist will chose the site that he thinks is more popular.

[Chuckone]

So let say PeerTracks is closed down. The Notes will tank buy-backs will stop. But I could open a PeerTracks 2.0 and in the Bitshare Music blockchain I have all the information need it to continue normal operation, because I have all the information on artistcoin holder, Notes Holder and bitUSD holders. In fact if PeerTracks goes down people will still have ther bitUSD and they could still trade artistcoin, the only think that will stop will be the buy back mechanism witch will resume as soon as PeerTrack 2.0 is up and running.

Thats all true, but if you have to rely on a resurrected PeerTracks after a government takedown, then it seems like the DAC has a flawed business model and that PeerTracks would have been better off avoiding regulatory hurdles by not using a blockchain.

But then you wouldn't have an army of artistcoin holders to promote their favourite artist, and being incentivized to do so through the buy back mechanism. That's the other layer added on top of the song selling that require a blockchain. Yes, if Cob wanted to create a second iTunes with the same functionalities, then a blockchain is not required and certainly not wanted.

[oco101]

So let say PeerTracks is closed down. The Notes will tank buy-backs will stop. But I could open a PeerTracks 2.0 and in the Bitshare Music blockchain I have all the information need it to continue normal operation, because I have all the information on artistcoin holder, Notes Holder and bitUSD holders. In fact if PeerTracks goes down people will still have ther bitUSD and they could still trade artistcoin, the only think that will stop will be the buy back mechanism witch will resume as soon as PeerTrack 2.0 is up and running.

Thats all true, but if you have to rely on a resurrected PeerTracks after a government takedown, then it seems like the DAC has a flawed business model and that PeerTracks would have been better off avoiding regulatory hurdles by not using a blockchain.

 If PeerTracks will be successful there will be probably other PeerTracks sites that will open on Bitshare Music blockchain, different artists will issues Artistcoin in different PeerTracks clones websites that will be all over the world, diffrent regulations. So you'll have redundancy

[Shentist]

Yes I completely misunderstood your question ....

Yes I would like to hear Cob elaborate on that.

Also: saying that a blockchain backend is protection against PeerTracks being taken doesnt really stack up: if that were to happen then the NOTES shares would tank, and buy-backs from music sales would stop.

So let say PeerTracks is closed down. The Notes will tank buy-backs will stop. But I could open a PeerTracks 2.0 and in the Bitshare Music blockchain I have all the information need it to continue normal operation, because I have all the information on artistcoin holder, Notes Holder and bitUSD holders. In fact if PeerTracks goes down people will still have ther bitUSD and they could still trade artistcoin, the only think that will stop will be the buy back mechanism witch will resume as soon as PeerTrack 2.0 is up and running. 

in my understanding the Artist should set a fixed amount he want to get say 70 Cent after taxes.

the bitshares music blockchain now needs an API who peertracks is using and anyone else can use to sell the music. would be more sense.

[speedy]

So let say PeerTracks is closed down. The Notes will tank buy-backs will stop. But I could open a PeerTracks 2.0 and in the Bitshare Music blockchain I have all the information need it to continue normal operation, because I have all the information on artistcoin holder, Notes Holder and bitUSD holders. In fact if PeerTracks goes down people will still have ther bitUSD and they could still trade artistcoin, the only think that will stop will be the buy back mechanism witch will resume as soon as PeerTrack 2.0 is up and running.

Thats all true, but if you have to rely on a resurrected PeerTracks after a government takedown, then it seems like the DAC has a flawed business model and that PeerTracks would have been better off avoiding regulatory hurdles by not using a blockchain.

Edit: No-one could open a PeerTracks 2.0 as they would have to recreate relationships with all the artists, open a new bank account to accept user deposits, not to mention return all their old deposits and regain their users' trust.

[oco101]

Yes I completely misunderstood your question ....

Yes I would like to hear Cob elaborate on that.

Also: saying that a blockchain backend is protection against PeerTracks being taken doesnt really stack up: if that were to happen then the NOTES shares would tank, and buy-backs from music sales would stop.

So let say PeerTracks is closed down. The Notes will tank buy-backs will stop. But I could open a PeerTracks 2.0 and in the Bitshare Music blockchain I have all the information need it to continue normal operation, because I have all the information on artistcoin holder, Notes Holder and bitUSD holders. In fact if PeerTracks goes down people will still have ther bitUSD and they could still trade artistcoin, the only think that will stop will be the buy back mechanism witch will resume as soon as PeerTrack 2.0 is up and running. 

[Shentist]

in my understanding

peertracks is total seperated from the blockchain so they don't transfer anykind of money

1. i buy a song on peertracks for 1,00 USD i don't care about the blockchain (i can only use the player from peertracks, like ituns). the player will check the ownership.l
2. peertracks handles the legal stuff on buying the song online (VAt etc.
3. till now nothing to worry about - a normal business like buying itunes music etc.

difference
4. after taxes and fees for peertracks from the remaining sum 80% goes direct to the artist (unclear how - bitUSD or USD ?)
5. 2% goes into Notes dilution
6. 18% goes in buying Artistcoins on the market and creating a stream of buying order, so the value of the artistcoin goes up.

[speedy]

Thats what I suspected. In that case how does a blockchain make any difference to the PeerTracks website?

So I think your question is how he manage to accept credit card and user get USD, and why this is not working already for  say BitshareX  ?
That a good question that Cob probably could answer, I'm curios too .

Well that wasnt exactly my question, but youve actually raised an interesting point: In order for PeerTracks to accept fiat for the purchase of BitUSD on the NOTES blockchain, they would be acting as an exchange and money transmitter, thereby placing themselves in the firing line of KYC regulation etc.

If PeerTracks were to ditch the blockchain and just make artistcoins tradable on its centralized website, then regulation becomes less of an issue.

So there are now 2 disadvantages to PeerTracks having a blockchain backend: extra costs AND regulation.

Also: saying that a blockchain backend is protection against PeerTracks being taken doesnt really stack up: if that were to happen then the NOTES shares would tank, and buy-backs from music sales would stop.

It would be great for cob to clarify this for us.

[Chuckone]

Thats what I suspected. In that case how does a blockchain make any difference to the PeerTracks website? They could just accept fiat and their business model is exactly the same. That way they would even save on transaction burn fees.

What I understood from Cob's description is that the blockchain provides a decentralized way to validate that a user actually bought the song. PeerTracks will scan the blockchain and confirm the sale, allowing the user to download the song/album from PeerTracks directly.

So if PeerTrack's site gets taken down for any reason, any other site can come up and do the same thing, and all the users would still have access to what they previously bought, assuming the new site would have the same songs/albums available for download.

Edit 1: And assuming the Bitshares Music DAC is still up and running

[oco101]

So its a choice between buying an artistcoin (100% to artist), and buying the song (80% to artist, 18% to buyback)? So I buy 1 copy of the song, and then if I really like the artist (hes undervalued) I will buy 1000 of his coins as well? That makes sense now.

Exactly if you just listen to the music on your phone you buy the song like you do now on Itunes. The beauty is that you can also "invest" on artist by buying artiscoin, and the more music he's selling the more artiscoin are destroyed and the more valuable the coins that you have is valued.

Thats what I suspected. In that case how does a blockchain make any difference to the PeerTracks website?

So I think your question is how he manage to accept credit card and user get USD, and why this is not working already for  say BitshareX  ?
That a good question that Cob probably could answer, I'm curios too . 

[cusknee]

Things are looking good for this DAC. Looking forward to the launch, investing and promoting.

[speedy]

The 80% is for the selling of music, not artistcoin. The money from artiscoin goes 100 % to artist. 
So once the music from artist start selling 80% goes to the artist, 18% goes for the buy back, 2% goes to notes shareholders(burned)

So its a choice between buying an artistcoin (100% to artist), and buying the song (80% to artist, 18% to buyback)? So I buy 1 copy of the song, and then if I really like the artist (hes undervalued) I will buy 1000 of his coins as well? That makes sense now.

That's the thing they don't need to be crypto. They go on PeerTracks website and they use they credit card and get bitUSD. PeerTracks it aimed not at the crypto word it is for all music fans.

Thats what I suspected. In that case how does a blockchain make any difference to the PeerTracks website? They could just accept fiat and their business model is exactly the same. That way they would even save on transaction burn fees.

[oco101]

Q) So I see a talented artist's coins are really cheap so I spend some BitUSD to get them. I then want to spread the word to my friends on facebook, but they aren't into crypto so dont have any BitUSD. What do I do about this? Will PeerTracks accept credit cards as a substitute to buy BitUSD first?

That's the thing they don't need to be crypto. They go on PeerTracks website and they use they credit card and get bitUSD. PeerTracks it aimed not at the crypto word it is for all music fans.

Q) Im trying to fully understand the buy-back process. An artist initially offers 10000 coins at 1 dollar each for example, and half of then are bought up. The artist gets the usual 80% of each sale, but where does the 20% go to, as there are not yet any other coins for sale in the hands of users?
  -Do the 20% of the initial sales sit waiting to buy-back coins as soon as some of the initial buyers start selling?
  -What if the initial buyers sell their coins back undercutting the initial artist sell price of 1 dollar?

The 80% is for the selling of music, not artistcoin. The money from artiscoin goes 100 % to artist. 
So once the music from artist start selling 80% goes to the artist, 18% goes for the buy back, 2% goes to notes shareholders(burned)

[speedy]

Q) So I see a talented artist's coins are really cheap so I spend some BitUSD to get them. I then want to spread the word to my friends on facebook, but they aren't into crypto so dont have any BitUSD. What do I do about this? Will PeerTracks accept credit cards as a substitute to buy BitUSD first?

Q) Im trying to fully understand the buy-back process. An artist initially offers 10000 coins at 1 dollar each for example, and half of then are bought up. The artist gets the usual 80% of each sale, but where does the 20% go to, as there are not yet any other coins for sale in the hands of users?
  -Do the 20% of the initial sales sit waiting to buy-back coins as soon as some of the initial buyers start selling?
  -What if the initial buyers sell their coins back undercutting the initial artist sell price of 1 dollar?

Q) How soon can we expect to see artists sign up to PeerTracks ? Any confirmed ones yet?

Thanks for any explanation on this.