Audius Raises $5.5 Million To Decentralize Music, Help Artists Get Paid Faster (techcrunch.com) 65
A new company called Audius, lead by entrepreneur and DJ Ranidu Lankage, has raised $5.5 million to build a blockchain-based alternative to Spotify or SoundCloud. "Users will pay for Audius tokens or earn them by listening to ads," reports TechCrunch. "Their wallet will then pay out a fraction of a cent per song to stream from decentralized storage across the network, with artists receiving roughly 85 percent -- compared to roughly 70 percent on the leading streaming apps. The rest goes to compensating whomever is hosting that song, as well as developers of listening software clients, one of which will be built by Audius." From the report: Audius plans to launch its open-sourced product in beta later this year. But it's already found some powerful investors that see SoundCloud as vulnerable to the cryptocurrency revolution. Audius has raised a $5.5 million Series A led by General Catalyst and Lightspeed, with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Pantera Capital, 122West and Ascolta Ventures. They're betting that Audius' token will grow in value, making the stockpile it keeps worth a fortune. It could then sell chunks of its tokens to earn revenue instead of charging artists directly. The big question will be whether Audius can use the token economy to crack the chicken-and-egg problem of getting its first creators and listeners on a platform that might be less functionally robust than its traditional competitors. There are a lot of moving parts to decentralize, but there are also plenty of disgruntled musicians out there waiting for something better.
Oh boy more middlemen (Score:2)
Or just use the lightning network and collect Satoshis directly with no fees.
Seriously, we donâ(TM)t need more rent seeking middlemen.
LN is the micropayment system weâ(TM)ve been waiting decades for.
Yes, I read the article (Score:2)
Re:Yes, I read the article (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not supposed to. It's just techno-babble designed to fool investors and giving them money
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Its "Napster" but with Blockchain. I think.
But then again, I'm old and remember when Napster was a thing.
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Its "Napster" but with Blockchain. I think.
If it ever gains any traction the 'establishment' music undustry will make certain it shares the same fate as Napster did.
The music industry has deep pockets and can easily afford to just keep filing lawsuit after lawsuit until they drain every last cent Audius has and force them into bankruptcy. Controlling the channels of distribution and functioning as gatekeepers between artists and their audiences is the music industry's bread & butter. They will go nuclear on anything and anyone who threatens thei
On what grounds would Audius be liable? (Score:2)
When major record labels sued Napster ( A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004 (2001) [wikipedia.org]), they had clear grounds to do so: Napster was infringing the copyright in the plaintiffs' recordings. Assuming Audius is obtaining permission from the owner of copyright in each recording and underlying musical work performed through its service, what grounds would the incumbent labels have to sue Audius and not have the suit discharged with prejudice as frivolous in summary judgment?
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Assuming Audius is obtaining permission from the owner of copyright in each recording and underlying musical work performed through its service, what grounds would the incumbent labels have to sue Audius and not have the suit discharged with prejudice as frivolous in summary judgment?
They could find a "friendly" jurisdiction with a sympathetic judge just as patent trolls do. There are also numerous other ways to harass them using the legal system other than copyright law. That's not even touching on using "their" politicians and government bureaucrats to endlessly investigate, raid, seize property, and audit them.
Strat
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They could find a "friendly" jurisdiction with a sympathetic judge just as patent trolls do.
NPEs filing suit in NPE-friendly judicial districts state a cause of action, namely patent infringement. What cause of action under copyright or any other law would a label have against an entity performing a sound recording or musical work whose copyright does not belong to that label?
There are also numerous other ways to harass them using the legal system other than copyright law.
What might these "numerous" causes of action be?
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What cause of action under copyright or any other law would a label have against an entity performing a sound recording or musical work whose copyright does not belong to that label?
What might these "numerous" causes of action be?
Filing (or having someone file) false DMCA take-down requests as we've seen occur far too often with little or no real consequences imposed for doing so. Claims against independent works on the platform for plagiarism/copying, which the courts have ruled can be only three notes in one famous case. The music industry has a lot of money, & power, not to mention politicians, bureaucrats, and judges in their pockets. They buy sleazeball lawyers by the trainload. They are capable of playing really dirty and
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Filing (or having someone file) false DMCA take-down requests as we've seen occur far too often with little or no real consequences imposed for doing so.
Once one victim of a false copyright claim lawyers up and prevails in court, it sets a template for other defendants in a similar fact situation to prevail. A victim of a false DMCA claim filed suit ( Smith v. Summit Entertainment [wikipedia.org]) and prevailed on several counts in 2011: wrongful assertion of copyright infringement, intentional interference in contractual and business relationships between the musician and the platform, and defamation of title.
Claims against independent works on the platform for plagiarism/copying, which the courts have ruled can be only three notes in one famous case.
I agree with you that claims of accidental infringement could
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One example I've trotted out myself several times on Slashdot is Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music over "My Sweet Lord". That case was over at least eight notes: one three-and-a-half-note motif repeated several times followed by one five-note motif repeated several times.
Which case was over only three notes?
I took liberties in my post for brevity and impact by only mentioning part of the particulars, I admit, but that is the case I was thinking of and mentioned off the op of my head without referencing.
I, too, would like better reliable data but it's not easily available in my experience (possibly not even tracked as recorded data points intentionally) and probably by design.
Strat
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I, too, would like better reliable data
A list of music copyright infringement cases [usc.edu] may help.
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To attack the cryptocurrency on which a decentralized organization relies:
Attack the miners through electric power use regulation and accusations of income tax evasion.
Attack the exchanges through money transfer regulation.
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Was Napster decentralised? I was thinking more like BitTorrent but with blockchain.
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sooo (Score:1)
So you can't mine the coins/tokens, you pay cash or listen to ads to fill your wallet, and listening to a song automatically withdraws some money to send it to the song artist's wallet. Unless they give some specifics for how many songs a single token provides, how many tokens are earned from watching a single advertisement, and how much a token costs if you pay directly, I can't quite see the difference to how it's being done right now from the listener perspective, aside from maybe a serious lack of conte
Great idea, almost (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm sure many crypto investors feel thoroughly fucked today.
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Although 10 minute clearing time is quite slow in crypto for the first confirmation these days, it is probably faster than any other payment method.
Funny. When I pay at a store with a debit card, it takes seconds for the payment to process and the money to withdraw from my account. I've never once sat 10 minutes at a payment terminal.
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That's the issue I have with a lot of these schemes: they use blockchain for decentralized settlement (and it's a fine technology for that) but instead of simply recording dollar amounts on the blockchain, they use a coin... and of course the founders themselv
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For example, there is a coin where 1 unit of it = $1 USD and always will.
And that coin is a scam. You cannot have a stable peg like that, but even if you could it's a dumb idea. The US dollar is not a stable, global unit of value, unlike, say, bitcoin.
So what is the blockchain solving? (Score:3)
Spotify knows how many ads I've ever seen, Spotify know what ads I've seen and what their payment rates are per view. If they didn't they wouldn't be able to sell ads at all. Spotify also knows how much money I've ever given them in subscription payments, if they didn't, they couldn't track who was subscribed. This means that Spotify knows how much money I brought in every month to their company.
Spotify knows what songs I've listened to, they keep track of how many people listen to each song. If they didn't, they wouldn't be able to do analytics given me recommended songs, they wouldn't have top 100 lists, or be able to report how many monthly listeners an artist has and how much they will pay those artists per listen. What is the problem that the blockchain is solving which wasn't solved with database queries?
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We sure can. Just pay $9.99 a month (or, in this case, buy $9.99 worth of tokens).
Oh, wait, did you mean, "isn't there a way I can listen to all the music I want and pay absolutely nothing and not have to watch ads or worry about my information being harvested?"
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Of course, it also insures that everyone, not just Audius, can see what music you're listening to.
The new bubble (Score:2)
Instead of " . . . but on a computer" or " . . . but over the internet", we now have " . . . but with a blockchain"
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One Web bubble burst in 2001. Remember Pets.com? (Score:2)
When the World Wide Web was released to the public, it caused a bubble that burst in 2001. "Pets.com: Because pets can't drive."
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What unit is fraction of a cent per song? (Score:2)
... pay out a fraction of a cent per song... with artists receiving roughly 85 percent - compared to roughly 70 percent on the leading streaming apps.
What is 85% of fraction of a cent? Is it larger than 70%? Without any actual numbers the artist cut means absolutely nothing.
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The most important part of the music business is the rightsholders, and they are more or less a cartel.
The "artists" are in reality interchangable cyphers the record companies create and market to the public. Simon Cowell showed them how to do it nearly 20 years ago, and they have the process down pretty well now.
Unless the record companies are taking pretty much all the money, they're never going to agree to any of this, and the "artists" have no say.
Unless Audius is goin
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Unless Audius is going to pitch to unsigned actual musicians
That appears to be the case. Audius is starting with recording artists who are "unsigned" (in the sense that they own their own recordings) and are frustrated with SoundCloud's lack of revenue tools.
competitors to Soundex is more like it (Score:2)
Microsoft Points (Score:2)
It is all in a name (Score:1)
Judging by the comments here... (Score:1)
How is it different from Musicoin? (Score:2)
Except that Musicoin doesn't seem to to take on, and that Audius will profit to other people, of course.