Peertracks is the first music DAC but it doesn't have to be the only music DAC.  If you have a different approach, checkout the BitShares toolkit and launch your idea!   

While yes, that is one possibility, the problem with that is the fragmentation of the market. Personally I would prefer not to do that. It's hard enough convincing artists to use one of these, let alone two, and once artists become settled in, many of them will not pick another. Better to get it right on the first go I think. Hence why I'd prefer to try the approach to better the current DAC than go and make my own.

As for toast, I'd be very interested in helping out. I assume this is open source, and I think there may be avenues to compromise on differences. This has been a dream of mine since I was a kid.

^See above

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is RJ. I have been working on a concept VERY similar to this since December 2013 and poured hours upon hours of research into how to make this work. The core focus of this (making this into a crypto and running it on a p2p network) is all fine and dandy and I like that it works on the concept of shares and derivatives. But after reading into this and becoming more antiquated, I am enraged to see how much the people running this project could really be so blind to what needs fixing and seems to be spoiling something that could be amazing. I don't mean that to insult, so much as to constructively criticize. I look at this DAC and see a lot of potential. The fact is there is a real chance to make something big happen here by correcting a problem with the market that has yet to be solved due to torrenting, that being pirated music. The fact is, the marginal cost to reproduce a song in today's day and age is near 0. We all agree on this and that is not changing.

We all know that teenagers/young adults, the primary users of cryptocurrencies and the larger consumers of new commercial music are the prime demographic that this software should be targeting. Now I ask you. First off, who the fuck is going to pay for their music when there are so many free alternatives? Specifically someone who is adept with this technology? Think about it. These are kids who know basic cryptography. You really don't think they know how to hide their IP Address to get around companies looking for seeders of their files?

The solution is that you have to offer the music for free. You have to make this an equitable platform version of Spotify (the biggest problem with Spotify is the fact that they aren't equitable in their distribution of funds because they're so caught up having to please publishers). This could really solve that problem. There is no reason to believe that we could not appeal to record labels with this freemium model that is free of advertisements because the payment will be in the value of the coin itself. If the only way to buy shares in a band is that I have to buy the coin, what is going to happen to the value of the coin when demand increases to buy share in the bands I like? It's going to go up and quite possibly create a network effect if the right bands are exposed to this. To put it simply, this should be a DAC that offers free streaming and the option to download. But with a catch. I have an idea for what that catch might be, but I would like to see if there is anybody else here who agrees that this is going to have a hard time gaining steam if you're making people actually PAY for music?  (Shit they don't even have to pay when it comes to Youtube).

Secondly, this whole "artistcoin" concept is just...dumb. I mean MAYBE this could be used in the future if/when this application takes off, and then artists can use them to let people buy merch with them (even though they could buy merch with cash already? And there's nothing about merch save a vaporizer that's worth buying it with a cryptocurrency). But until then, what's the use of them? They just unnecessarily complicate the system.

Thirdly, it would seem (and I could be wrong here, but I am interpreting from what I've read) that this may bring a centralized server (the peernotes website) with it to pull certain files that have been uploaded but are not owned by the artist. This is an understandable position to take, what with lawsuits and all, but it is not one that the cryptocurrency community will take kindly to and it very well may cause this application to fail if fully implemented. There is another way that we could do this. We could run a database of fingerprinted audio files checking for similarities in the audio file. In addition we could try compressing the file via FLAC to put in the best quality file possible and giving the customer a better product (and thus have more chances to succeed) and then scan for all similar files. In addition we can also put in a voting/grading system for bad files/pirated files that make their way to the network utilizing the system of Delegated Proof of Stake in bitshares to stifle their ability to earn profit from the network.

TL;DR Make people buy shares, not music. Don't do artistcoins. Look for another way with the network.

Remember, we have to think of the customer.

EDIT: After further reading about the "artistcoin" in these forums, I think I may have an idea about what their real purpose is, that being to represent the shares of that artist and the worth. In which case, I see what you're doing.