What do you think about the presence of the Audius platform in the music industry?
Where I am from (Ghana), most upcoming artists do not get this opportunity to grow. They struggle through the system, despite the fact that they are able to create great songs. They usually have managers who have a lot of requirements and rules that these artists find difficult to go by.
From what I know, to sign a record label, there are some set rules and regulations that the artist has to follow such as splitting of the profits of the music at a certain proportion, say, 55% and 45% to the artist and the manager respectively. They even go far and extend it to concerts or parties organized by the artist. This makes it difficult for upcoming artists since they cannot afford to pay these managers. If they do not receive any support, their talent is left rotten in a gutter. Here in Ghana to make it up the musical ladder, you have to be rich already to feature other artists, pay your manager, and take care of your expenses.
But a platform known as Audius has been introduced to take care of all these problems. Audius is a decentralized music platform, that is used for browsing and sharing music. This platform gives the total profit gained from the music to the original creator of that particular music. It was founded in 2018 by Roneil Ramburg and Forrest Browning, its purpose is to connect artists with their fans directly. This way, their fans can purchase the music and the funds go directly to the artist. The platform is decentralized so the artist will have total control over his money.
This platform gets rid of the need for music labels which are used as intermediaries to market or produce the music. Musicians can also use the audius platform to copyright their work without the need for a music label. This helps safeguard the music by artists from being stolen.
The Audius platform has gained interest from a lot of musicians around the world who are looking to find a much more secure and private environment for their music products. They also gain more profit from their music on this platform.
The platform has a native token known as AUDIO, this token can be reaching higher heights and shows very good growth potential for the Audius platform.
When I am asked what I think about this wonderful platform, I would say it is the best environment for the deserved growth of a musician.
With the governance system used by Audius, do you think that system has made Audius a fair and fully decentralized platform? If not, please provide your personal suggestions for the system that Audius uses to make it more fair and decentralized.
Audius is a decentralized platform that allows every user who has staked the AUDIO tokens on the platform to take part in decision making and governance to improve and accelerate the development of the platform.
Suggestions and proposals on the development of the platform are brought forward to the platform, users who have staked their tokens are given the opportunity to vote on those development proposals. A proposal needs a minimum of 5% vote of all the tokens staked on the platform and also, there must be a 50% or more of the minimum 5% votes voting in favour of the suggestion for it to successfully pass and get implemented on the platform.
The amount of token staked tells the power of the vote. Every token represents a vote, so 1 token will give one vote.
This governance system might be unfair to users who are only able to stake less tokens or no tokens at all on the platform. This provides some sort of superiority to the rich investors. They are able to affect the voting process and the development of the platform at large to suite their personal interests since their vote will have a greater weight compared to the others. Those rich investors might vote against a very good proposal or vote for a very bad proposal that will have a negative impact on the community. Those who are unable to stake for some reasons are still a part of the community and I think they should also have a voice in making decisions since those decisions affects everyone who uses the platform.
To this situation, I would suggest that users should be restricted to a certain number of votes so that even if the staked token surpasses that amount they can only vote based on the restriction.
In general, this governance system is good since it prevents dormant users and users who do not add any value to the development of the platform from taking part in decision making. This is a very good process as active users who are very aware of the core processes of the platform are the only ones who are allowed take decisions best for the growth of the platform.
Explain how to do 2 types of staking on Audius complete with illustrations. (Image Required)
There are two types of staking on the Audius platform known as;
• Artist or client staking
• Node operator staking
I will demonstrate them further soon. But before we go to the staking part, we have to connect a wallet to the platform first.
To do that we will go to the official page of Audius https://dashboard.audius.org/, when the page loads you will find a button at the top right corner that says connect to MetaMask, click on it.
Next a dialog box will appear and will ask you to you open MetaMask and log in. Click on OPEN METAMASK
Click on next
Then click on connect
The MetaMask wallet has been connected successfully to the Audius Platform.
Now, to stake on the platform through the node operation method, click on services on the page. In the service overview click on REGISTER NEW SERVICE
Enter the amount of $AUDIO tokens you wish to stake and click on register service.
Click on confirm with MetaMask to confirm the transaction.
Steps to Connect as a Client
With your wallet still connected, click on services
Choose from the operators to delegate to
Click on delegate to delegate to the operator.
Enter the preferred amount to delegate and click on delegate to continue
Then start the confirmation process of the transaction by clicking on the confirm with MetaMask button.
Your MetaMask wallet will prompt you to confirm the transaction.
Show the steps to create an account on Audius. (Screenshot Required)
To create an account we will visit https://audius.co , after the page loads, find and click on Sign Up
Enter your email account and click on continue
Read the rules of a password and enter a new password and confirm it. After that click on continue
You can choose to connect with a social media account like Twitter and Instagram, this way your profile is automatically imported onto the platform. You can choose “I’d rather fill out my profile manually” to enter your own profile. I chose the manual process
Enter a preferred username and handle. You can add a profile picture by clicking on the add button with the picture icon.
Browse your files and select a profile picture to upload. Click on continue after that.
You will then be required to follow at least three artists to proceed. Click on continue
You can scan the QR code with your phone for a direct link to download the Audius App. You can skip by clicking on Continue.
The account has been created successfully
Explore and explain the features available on the Audius application or website. (Screenshot Required)
The Audius interface has features such as explore, trending and feed in the discover section then Favorites and history in the Library section. Also, playlist, the profile page, etc. are also some areas to explore. To find all these and their functions, we will visit https://audius.co
Explore
This section shows music that are trending, remixes, top albums, etc. the music here have been organized into categories based on genre, playlists, mood . to make it easier to for users to find music of their choice.
trending
This option shows songs that are currently trending, they are shown selected on a weekly, monthly, and all-time basis.
Feed
This option shows songs from artists you follow and also show songs you may like
favorites
Songs that the user likes are shown here. It also shows albums and playlists that are preferred by the user to ease the user’s navigation to find their favorite songs or artists
Edit page
This option allows the user to customize and input information about themselves. It also allows the user to connect with other social media pages of the user. The user can also change their profile picture and cover photo here.
After the user information has been changed, just click on save changes to save the new information entered.
Notifications
This is where the user is prompted on new activities on the platform. They get notified of new followers and others
settings
This section is where the user can customize the platform to suit his or her preference. It has appearance which allows users to toggle between dark mode and light mode, user can set it to auto which decides for the user based on the circumstance. It also allows users to verify their accounts by sending a link to their social media. The link to download the desktop app is also available here. In case of account loss, users can recover the account through a recovery email given by the user. Lastly, the user can change their passwords here.
Playlist
This section shows playlists that has been created by the user.
Explain in detail how the mechanism of uploading music content on Audius.
Audius has two different nodes that take care of content uploads;
• Discovery node
• Content node
The content nodes store songs that have been uploaded on the platform. It also helps to deliver the songs for users to listen to. First when the song is uploaded, the content node gives it a timestamp. And checks to see if the song was stolen or it infringes on some copyright rules. After the content node has verified the song, it distributes it to other nodes and also saves it on the blockchain for its security.
The discovery node will then fuse it with information of the artist to make sure that the song the is belonged to the artist and cannot be stolen or claimed by anyone else through hashing it. After this is done, and the song is verified by the discovery node, it records the song and stores it in such a way that it cannot be owned by anyone else.
The song is then successfully uploaded on to the platform.
Upload your original music to Audius and show the proof using a block explorer. (Screenshot Required)
To upload a music, open your Audius account. And select upload track
Browse your computer and select the track file to be uploaded
Click on continue
Enter the details of the song, enter the name and select an art work to be a thumbnail for the picture.
Artwork has been added and the details have been given. Click on continue
Wait of the file to upload
The upload process is complete
The song has been successfully uploaded
source
Conclusion
The audius platform has changed the music industry and added more sweetness to it. Those new talents that are unable to afford managers can sign up to this platform that will eliminate the need for record labels that serve as an intermediary between artists and their fans. Here the artist can upload their songs for free and receive all the profit from them.
The governance system of the platform does not favor those who are unable to own more tokens. Due to this, their voices are not heard enough as the votes of the rich carry more weight than theirs. Aside from that, dormant users are not allowed to vote because they may not understand what may be the best for the platform.
Thank you, prof. @wahyunahrul for this great lecture, I learned a lot from it. I will be awaiting your next presentation