NOTE: This document is a draft. Please read as a statement of intentions.
MUSES.FM aims to establish a circular economy between musicians, playlist curators and playlist taggers.
MUSES.FM distinguishes user roles in three not mutually exclusive categories: artists, curators and taggers. To act as artist and curator, the user must have an account on any of the supported music distribution platforms (e.g. Spotify, Apple Music, Audius, etc.). To act as tagger, the user does not require having an account on any music distribution platforms but it may be required for having access to certain features.
Artists are musicians with verified accounts on music platforms. They create the music we all love.
Curators are playlist curators with accounts on music platforms. They actively look for new music, listen to songs carefully and curate unique playlist.
Taggers are the beating heart of MUSES.FM. They listen often to songs in the background, actively look for new playlists and tag them on MUSES.FM. Tags are used as metadata for playlist discovery in MUSES.FM and this value added is rewarded in the form of tokens that can only be donated to artists.
This section describes the token lifecycle in the circular economy, from minting (creation) to burning (destruction) as well as intermediate steps.
sequenceDiagram;
autonumber
Tagger->>Tagger: Tags a playlist
note over Tagger: Locked tokens<br/> are minted
Tagger ->> Artist: Donates via verified playlist
note over Tagger, Artist: Tokens are unlocked and transferred
Artist ->> Curator: Pushes a song<br/> for consideration
note over Artist, Curator: Tokens are held<br/> until curator reviews song
Curator ->> Curator: Reviews pushed song
note over Curator: Tokens are transferred
Curator ->> Tagger: Pushes a playlist<br/> for tagging
note over Curator, Tagger: Tokens are held<br/> until tagger reviews playlist
Tagger ->> Tagger: Tags pushed playlist
note over Tagger: Tokens are transferred
Tagger ->> Tagger: Features playlist or tag<br/> on MUSES.FM
note over Tagger: Tokens are burned
Tokens are minted by taggers when they tag playlists (1). Tags are used as metadata for playlist discovery in MUSES.FM. Minted tokens represent the value added to the platform. Minted tokens are initially locked. This means that taggers cannot directly transfer tokens to other DFINITY accounts. Instead, taggers are expected to donate their accumulated tokens to artists on MUSES.FM. Rather than donating tokens directly to individual artists, taggers donate via playlists maintained by curators and verified on the platform (2). Tokens get distributed equally to all artists featured in the chosen playlist. This help prevent winners-take-all dynamics, where popular artists would get most of the donations. The playlists on MUSES.FM effectively become a revenue distribution channel for artists.
Tokens are unlocked by taggers when they donate their accumulated tokens to artists (2). Artists don't need to have an account on MUSES.FM to receive tokens. Unlocked tokens are held until the artist creates an account on MUSES.FM and connects it to their artist account on the music distribution platform (i.e. Spotify, Apple Music, etc.). Once the accounts are connected, the artist can claim all their unlocked tokens. Unlocked tokens can be freely transferred on the DFINITY network. This mean that tokens can be traded on exchanges and that artists can sell them right away.
Unlocked tokens can be used by artists on MUSES.FM to push songs to curators (3). This keeps the tokens held until matched curators listen to the song, review it and decide if they want to add it to any of their verified playlists or not (4). Once a curator does the job, the tokens are transferred to them. These tokens are unlocked, meaning that they can also trade them on exchanges and sell them right away. Not limiting the music promotion to songs, curators can also use their tokens on MUSES.FM to push playlists to taggers (5). This keeps tokens held until matched taggers tag the playlist. Once an tagger does the job, the tokens are transferred to them, this time unlocked (6). This allows for taggers to finally trade and sell them.
Unlocked tokens can be burned by taggers to publicly feature playlists and tags on MUSES.FM (7). Taggers that burn tokens effectively decline monetary gains to further promote music. Featured content has a prominent position on the user interface, publicly accessible by anyone on the Internet. Burning tokens decrease the supply of tokens, which increases their market value.
This section discusses potential issues in the proposed economic model and possible mitigation strategies.
If the token minting takes place without any form of control, it's very likely that the market will end up flooded with token and the token price collapsing. If the price collapses, neither artists or curators will be encouraged to use MUSES.FM for monetary gains.
Token minting could implement different forms of throttling to prevent uncontrolled inflation. Some that are currently considered:
- Max daily issuance in the entire platform.
- Max daily issuance per
tagger. - Max daily distribution per
playlist.
Token burning is a parameter that can help as well mitigate inflation. Besides taggers being able to burn token for featuring content on MUSES.FM, these are other events that could trigger token burning:
- Unclaimed tokens by
artistsafter a certain period of time. - A percentage of tokens used to push songs and playlists.
The question of who will decide these parameters after launch opens the door to discussions around the governance of the network.
If any throttling is applied to taggers, it would be possible for someone to create multiple accounts to overcome limitations. Gitcoin Quadratic Funding grants gives us examples of how vulnerabilities to sybil attacks can be exploited and mitigated.
Some ideas that would be applicable to MUSES.FM:
- Limiting minted tokens unless the
taggerconnects their account to other platforms (e.g. Spotify, Twitter, BrightID, etc.). - Requiring
taggersto stake an initial amount (this would limit engagement too).