Audius is a blockchain-based music streaming service that aims to pay musicians directly when their songs are streamed, cutting out middlemen who often take a significant cut of profits. With an average of 90% of payment going directly to the artist, Audius allows musicians to upload their music directly to the platform, where it is stored on the blockchain, and compensates them fairly. AUDIO tokens are used as collateral, and staking as a node allows node operators to earn 7-10% annually. Audius has the potential to become a major player in the music industry, with its decentralized approach allowing for more ownership of creative work by artists.
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Audius: The Decentralized Future of Music Streaming
Music streaming has been a major industry for quite some time now, but the way it operates has always been a topic of debate. With many artists struggling to make ends meet, blockchain-based music streaming platforms like Audius are aiming to change the industry for the better. In this article, we will delve into the workings of Audius and understand how it is revolutionizing the world of music, one track at a time.
Introduction
We all know the adage about the starving artist. Vincent van Gogh died penniless and partially earless, but that’s another story. Musicians today struggle to be fairly compensated for their work, with every hit song attracting a myriad of middlemen lining up to take their cut of the profit. When an artist signs with a major label, they give up the rights to their own recordings, or the masters as they’re called in the music industry.
The Struggle of Emerging Musicians
Emerging musicians notoriously have a hard time making ends meet. And it’s high time we show them the money. Show me the money. And that’s where Audius comes in, a blockchain-based music streaming service that connects listeners to artists. It has the potential to cut out the middlemen and pay musicians directly when their songs are streamed. The future of music is decentralized. Let’s get it!
Understanding Audius
Audius is a blockchain-based music streaming service that aims to solve the issue of fair compensation for artists. Artists and musicians usually get a measly 12% cut of the profits from their songs. Audius and its native governance token AUDIO aim to change this by allowing artists to upload their music directly to the platform where it’s stored on the blockchain. The artists are then compensated directly by the fans as they listen, with an average of 90% of the payment going directly to the artist.
How Audius Works
The Audius platform is decentralized and is operated by content nodes and discovery nodes that bring content to the user using data streaming. Audius has a web service and an app which are similar in form and function to SoundCloud. It has a custom framework that is based around IPFS, which is a decentralized protocol for peer-to-peer data storage. All the behind-the-scenes work is done by Audius’s content nodes and discovery nodes, and that all boils down to staking.
Connecting Artists and Fans
Holders of the AUDIO token can stake their tokens by setting up a content or discovery node. The minimum number of AUDIO tokens to create an Audius node is 20,000 AUDIO. And at the current price of $1.38, this node could cost a pretty penny. AUDIO holders can delegate a minimum of 100 AUDIO tokens to any of these node operators using a MetaMask wallet. When node operators service the network, they earn 7-10% annually of the AUDIO tokens that they have staked. On the artist’s end, there isn’t much difference between uploading content to Audius and uploading to SoundCloud. When an artist uploads a song to Audius, it is uploaded to a content node. Then the data gets transcoded and returns a reference code that the track is then identified by.
The Future of Audius
Developers can build apps on top of Audius technology, meaning that where Audius is now may not be the same in the future. In Audius’s whitepaper, it states that in the future, they want users to be able to leverage stablecoins to unlock paid content. There’s also the ability for artists to create an artist token that they can distribute directly through Audius that will allow their fans to unlock exclusive content.
Conclusion
Blockchain-based music streaming platforms like Audius are changing the industry for the better by allowing artists to hold on to more ownership of their work. Audius could very well be the next big thing in music streaming. That’s all we have for today. Keep an eye out for more blockchain-based innovations that are disrupting traditional industries.
