SonIQ – Let Freedom Sing
Toward a Blockchain Music Market-Play
Parker Emmerson | myblogband.com
ABSTRACT
The independent music talent pool is richer than ever, but its pockets are empty. Corporate middle-men and streaming, ad-based platforms have monopolized the marketplace by enabling steals of songs, and in the process depriving talented independent artists as well as superstars major earning potential. We think the contemporary music economy needs to change in order for music cultures and subcultures to flourish. It needs to adopt innovative ways of bringing revenue directly to musicians to empower and incentivize them to produce better, faster, stronger, keeping our music industry alive and thriving. The patented innovation we propose is the integration of our media-oriented cryptocurrency, SonIQ, into our patented online social network for musicians, MyBlogBand (US20100326256 A1, US8487173 B2, US8962964 B2), to allow for seamless licensing, payment, distribution, and collaboration of independent music, media and even artificial intelligence.
INTRODUCTION
Independent music has gained enormous steam since the advent of the internet. In recent years, listeners have grown jaded with radio’s limited, formulaic offerings and turned to the web for free or cheap access to raw, talented musicians all over the map. But whether this buffet of independent music can outlast listeners’ appetites depends on indie artists actually making a good living from their popularity, which internet platforms haven’t engendered so far. Lacking profits, artists have been resorting to grueling tours, like troubadours of olden days.
An argument for cheapening the music industry is that consumers are accustomed to not pay, and consumers are the boss. But because the state of things is not sustainable, whoever provides a viable alternative first will become a disruptive pioneer and a champion of democracy. We live in a time in which the importance of sustainability is more apparent and appealing than ever. We think cryptocurrency can be seamlessly integrated into the user experience and eventually prove its own value as consumers see music quality and availability improve through the use of this payment system.
MyBlogBand will be a patented, custom-tailored cryptocurrency social network for multimedia artists that will let them prove their contributions to media as well as license media access and return ownership of content as access to a library of data. This feature is distinct from iTunes, Spotify, Pandora and other streaming music services: iTunes only allows limited access to purchased media by authorized devices with non-transferable license. The others don’t grant ownership of content, limit accessible content types to music and limit themselves to popular, syndicated artists, making it harder to discover new artists and indie musicians.
BACKGROUND/PROBLEM STATEMENT
1) Artists have a hard time quickly and efficiently distributing their content and receiving adequate payment. Too much money is given to middlemen, and only a few artists dominate the heard music. We need to rectify the situation so independent music scenes can thrive.
2) Time-stamping and proof of authorship.
3) Fast and easy distribution of payments for content.
SOLUTION
1. MyBlogBand: MyBlogband is committed to honoring the freedom and trust of musicians and listeners worldwide by re-investing in small and indie artists, and protecting the diversity, integrity and accessibility of the global music library for listeners. With the help of SonIQ, Blogband wants to ensure trust that every artist will get paid well as they deserve, that their music will be accessible and affordable, and that there will be privacy all around. Blogband enables a simple, direct and transparent payout structure using SonIQ in which indie rates can be the same as those of big artists. Money goes directly to the artist rather than trickling down through platforms or labels. Artists get bigger per-stream royalty rates and the option to offer easy paid downloads, to sell CDs and monetize other artist products, and to monetize donations through fan-funding platforms similar to those of Patreon.
Myblogband LLC has been around since 2007 and was re-branded as Blogband LLC once the patent was awarded (US8487173). We have a strong IP asset package marketed by a top IP asset attorney and entrepreneur – but we are still young and growing. Our vision for establishing IP and solid business growth involves media licensing and integrating Bitcoin. In addition, we are seeking interested parties who would like to invest in making Blogband a real challenge to the status quo of music distribution platforms and the establishment music industry. Social network for musicians to collaborate online in a band that they start or join. Distributed payments to contributors over a custom-tailored cryptocurrency network — SonIQ — that uses licensing.
a) Claims of the social media music network.
b) Mechanics of the licensing smart contracts.
c) Band members input their cryptocurrency addresses and automatically receive payment for their percentage contribution to a song upon initial sale of the song through the platform and all subsequent copies generated through sending.
2. A Digital Media Wallet on MyBlogBand will allow licensing via SonIQ, a custom-tailored cryptocurrency for the social media framework. The idea here is to use the cryptocurrency styled mining network to facilitate the licensing of media, be it video, audio or visual. Licenses to access media would be generated using the Bitcoin network in the SonIQ embodiment over a social media framework of MyBlogBand, an idea currently addressed in my patent-pending CIP application. It could also license content through the cryptocurrency network node with individual licenses to media stored on a Cloud server.
What is a Bitcoin network node? A Bitcoin network node is a record of all Bitcoin transactions that have taken place that is current and up-to-date with the current issuance of all Bitcoins and transactions of all Bitcoins. The same is true for a node of any current cryptocurrency. This idea of a node is essential to the concept of a crypto currency or cryptographic ledger technology. People who operate computers that are used to solve the encryption algorithm that issues crypto-currencies (Bitcoin, Litecoin, etc.) are referred to as miners, and it is their job to see to it that Bitcoins are issued within the constraints of the open source software project. Bitcoins are entries into the distributed, cryptographically protected ledger that indicate a positive balance located at a cryptographically protected address. Bitcoin addresses are generated by operating a Bitcoin node and indicating that one would be able to accept Bitcoins when they are sent to a particular string of numbers that was generated within the constraints of the Bitcoin software protocol.
What is a Bitcoin wallet? A Bitcoin wallet is a positive balance located at a Bitcoin address. Bitcoin wallets are either Cloud based or stored on a hard drive. Access is granted to a Bitcoin wallet/address when a Bitcoin node has the correct private, cryptographic key (set of numbers) to send Bitcoins from that respective address.
How are licenses to media contained and protected in this embodiment? Given an individual piece of media, for example a song, entitled “Song 1,” authorization to play the song, copy the song, transfer the song or sell the song would be granted
using a cryptographic key issued by a mining network such as the Bitcoin network/protocol. A user’s online account would be credited with access to the media
over a suite of different hardware/software platforms that have access to this data stored on “the Cloud.” Cryptographic keys that grant access to the media would be stored on the Cloud and all the user would have to do is log into their account. Users could transfer those cryptographic keys to be stored locally on hardware. A “wallet” software is used to organize the cryptographic keys that grant access to data, therefore turning it to consumable media. The wallet organizes the data+cryptographic keys as a cryptocurrency node on the cryptocurrency network in a Graphic User Interface such that it is easily accessible through a browser. In this embodiment, the keys are still held on the Cloud, so the media is accessible wherever the data is available so long as the user is logged into his Cloud account. The cryptocurrency, distributed ledger technology is simply used to maintain the licenses to transform data into media.
How are media licenses transferred from one person to another? By means of access to the Cloud account, the user may transfer these licenses using a website or by having his local Media Wallet transfer the licenses from the Cloud server to another wallet or Cloud account. Any format of media may be transferred.
How do licenses operate in conjunction with data to grant access to content? A cryptocurrency, or distributed ledger technology (synonymous), works with a public address and a private key. A decentralized encrypting network (like the Bitcoin network) maintains the history of all transfers/transactions that take place. Data is downloaded from many different distributors and platforms, with the downloading/receiving of data, licenses to access the content are also conferred to a public address, the private keys to which are held on a Cloud server or local disk. All of this is made available to the user through their Media Wallet.
How is content finally delivered to the end user? Once the user has the data, the private key that grants access to the data or balance, which is enshrined by the Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency network at a particular address also grants access to the data, thereby turning it into media, because a centralized or distributed database of media files verifies the presence of the correct keys at the cryptocurrency node through either proof of stake (proof that there is the presence of the key) or transfer of the key one time per media usage to the owner’s own wallet.
3. Licensing media as granted access to a host of media stored on a Cloud server.
The owner of a private key that corresponds to the correct respective value on a cryptocurrency network is also granted access to a subscription style service of media.
4. Licensing media content through a Bitcoin network node with individual licenses to
particular pieces of media stored on a local server/computer/hard-drive/wallet.
Data is downloaded and locally stored licenses (private keys) grant access. The private
keys can be transferred from one address to another address on a cryptocurrency
network or the balance located at an address that signifies access to the data can be
sent to another address, and thus access to the media is conferred that way.
5. Licensing media content through a Bitcoin network node with individual licenses to a host of media stored locally.
6. A custom-tailored cryptocurrency — SonIQ — for the express purpose of granting media licensing on the basis of distributed, cryptographic ledger technology. A wallet that can organize and categorize different kinds of licenses to different kinds of media using a multitude of cryptocurrency platforms including the cryptocurrency platform that has been custom-tailored to make media licensing easier. Cryptographic network- mining network (present, existing, or novel and tailored). . Further, we hope to allow for the tokenization of media content through a digital media crypto-wallet, so that virtual items in games can be included in the ownable content transferable over a blockchain. Virtual weapons, clothing, items, cars, or any acquirable object in a video or computer game can be tokenized, held, synced, and transferred between games, users and players for different devices, terminals, consoles or games for different purposes.
7. We want to be adaptable to future technologies, so our eye is also on integrating AI structures. Artificial intelligence robots can integrate different robot features, buy and trade different parts of themselves as assets.
Basic terms:
License node – An up-to-date record of the presence of all licenses.
Direct send – The transfer of both the data for media and the cryptographic token by which the data is allowed to be media.
License authorization key – Generated by the network of the custom cryptographic,
distributed ledger/currency when a content owner/provider/generator receives payment via Bitcoin, the aforementioned custom currency or other currency.
Media Wallet – a cryptocurrency wallet that contains access keys to different kinds of data.
License for different purposes: right to perform the song, right to play the song in a venue, right to copy the song, right to sell the song, right to distribute the song.
