The time has come for starving artists to finally make real money from their music. As the Internet disrupted the way record labels make their money, the blockchain is taking this another step by threatening to render them useless. PeerTracks is matching the artist up with the audience and allowing them to both make money, all the while spreading knowledge of the blockchain to the mainstream.
I got a chance to speak with Cédric Cobban, the individual who, along with Eddie Corral, is orchestrating the unique Peertracks effort.
What is Peertracks?
PeerTracks is a music streaming/retail website that plugs into the BitShares Music blockchain. It’s a user friendly front end aimed at the masses, allowing them to benefit from all the advantages crypto brings without the need to understand or even know what a blockchain is.
What does PeerTracks do?
For an artist, it’s a platform to sell your music and engage your fans through the creation and sale of your own artistcoins, whose value is tied to the sale of your music. This incentivizes artistcoin holders to promote you, get you to stardom and increase your sales – all this without a middleman taking a cut.
For a fan/regular user, it’s a place to buy cheaper music and know all your funds are going to the artist. It’s a place to discover new music and benefit by buying the coins of artists you think will be big. Being avant-garde has never been so lucrative!
PeerTracks essentially ties price discovery with talent discovery since the value of an artist’s coin is tied to his music’s sales.
How does it work?
Everything PeerTracks allows is made possible by the BitShares Music blockchain. BitShares Music is essentially a spinoff of BitSharesX, only tweaked to make it better suited for the music economy.
PeerTracks users will spend and earn BitUSD, a crypto-currency market pegged to the US dollar. This shields our users (which are not day traders) from the volatility normally present with crypto-currencies while still benefiting from the many advantages like low fees.
This blockchain is a decentralized exchange; many things trade on it. First, there are Notes, the unit of the blockchain. Then there are artistcoins, which are user issued assets created by the artists to sell (or give away) to their fans. Think Snoopcoin, Biebercoin, etc.
Third and finally, there are BitAssets, like the BitUSD, which are market pegged to their real world counterparts and are collateralized by Notes, meaning all BitAssets are backed by units of the blockchain.
All trades are done ON blockchain. No centralized exchanges required in:
- the purchase of music (a fan sending BitUSD to the band)
- the trading of artistcoins (Snoopcoin for Rihannacoin, or Biebercoin for BitUSD)
- the trading of Notes for BitAssets or artistcoins
PeerTracks never holds any funds. All trades are done peer 2 peer, on blockchain, no trust required.
What is your vision for PeerTracks?
PeerTracks and BitShares Music are going to change the entire digital content economy.
Not only does Peertracks cut out extremely inefficient middlemen, but it also links the fans, the artists and the promoters’ incentives towards the same goal: getting songs and albums out to the world and generating as many sales as possible. Napster changed the world, yes, but it shortchanged the content creators. Incentives did not align… simple as that. This project will change the way small time artists are funded, how they are promoted and how they make a living from their music. The artist’s coin being tied to sales of music is one thing but combining this with “token controlled access” allows artists to bring value to their fans at relatively low cost. For example, an artist could grant backstage passes to anyone with over 100 of his artistcoin.
The model does not stop at music. This concept can be used for movies, ebooks, and even physical goods traded online (eBay could adopt this model for example)
What are you currently busy with?
We are getting BitShares Music and PeerTracks launched. We are presently focused on our pre-sale which started october 6th. Anyone can claim their stake in the future of music by going to www.bitsharesmusicfoundation.org
What is your professional background?
Eddie Corral’s background is 25 plus years working with the biggest names and companies in the music business. He brings years of copyright, publishing, marketing and promotions experience with independent and major label artists – from sheet music to download he has taken many artist from recording studio to radio.
For myself [Cédric Cobban]: I am a small time entrepreneur in a relatively small town called Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada. Co-owner of an MMA gym + real estate investments (not too relevant to technology!)
My interest in Austrian economics and investing led me to Bitcoin in 2011 which led me to BitShares… which consumed me!
What would you like to tell our readers?
We would like them to know that they have about 45 days left to participate in the NOTE pre-sale. If you see value in what we are doing and realize that this technology we can displace a multi billion dollar industry, check out the pre-sale at www.bitsharesmusicfoundation.org and be a part of it.
