This is a really interesting idea, sitting here reading the website. The main issue for current artists with deals with record labels would be needing to re-negotiate rights so they are allowed to “distribute” it in such a way.
But yes! I too have had the same thought for years about bittorrent as distributed cloud storage! Thank you for trying to make that a reality!
I will patiently watch this project with great interest. I am sorry to say I am far too broke to contribute at the moment, but I have high hopes that you succeed nonetheless!
smile took a year to build it. huge undertaking just between the crappy torrent libraries, userspace VPN, and sandboxing the plugins correctly. but its finally running and mostly usable. i’m sanding the rough edges atm.
I really want to use it to help fund research and public goods like linux distros and even training data. cough research that has been attacked recently… cough
People who are able and interested should check the founders blog post. those who sign up and help really get this off the ground (currently) get to decide what features go in what tiers and help prioritize the feature list.
edit re: record labels
yeah that is a problem but I’ve accounted for it a bit. first the base tier has enough to cover that cost. secondly most independent artists are not part of those deals and can just sign up. the actual return from this system are up to 7x what spotify/google pay out in streaming revenue not counting the revenue generated from the storage layer.
This might sound like an off-the-wall suggestion, but waaaaaay back in the day, Trent Reznor was in on the torrent game, he had an account on Oink.UK way way way back. He described it as the best music store in existence.
It’s a shot in the dark, but reach out to him, that’s a person who could really help something like this become a reality who has the money and the knowledge of the music legal system to approach it. He also likely has similar ideology, as evidenced by his joy at Oink.UK. I know he cares about how much artists get paid and wants it to be better, he also understood the value proposition Oink offered. Anyway, perhaps the kind of famous person who could help this project really get off the ground.
** I’ll admit I had an account there and frequented it quiteoften. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that itwas like the world’s greatest record store. Pretty much anything youcould ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format youwanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but thereisn’t the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kindof feels like Sam Goody to me. I don’t feel cool when I go there. I’mtired of seeing John Mayer’s face pop up. I feel like I’m being hustledwhen I visit there, and I don’t think their product is that great. DRM,
low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get aroundthe issue of pre-release leaks. And that’s what’s such a difficultpuzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leakedrecord out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People onthose boards, they’re grateful for the person that uploaded it —
they’re the hero. They’re not stealing it because they’re going to makemoney off of it; they’re stealing it because they love the band. I’mnot saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that itexisted because it filled a void of what people want.
smile thanks for the idea, I have a list of people to try and reach out to. retrovibed does have a free tier. just installing it helps because having users around is at least an indicator I can use in discussions. and it is a fully fledged torrent application so its usable ;)
This is a really interesting idea, sitting here reading the website. The main issue for current artists with deals with record labels would be needing to re-negotiate rights so they are allowed to “distribute” it in such a way.
But yes! I too have had the same thought for years about bittorrent as distributed cloud storage! Thank you for trying to make that a reality!
I will patiently watch this project with great interest. I am sorry to say I am far too broke to contribute at the moment, but I have high hopes that you succeed nonetheless!
smile took a year to build it. huge undertaking just between the crappy torrent libraries, userspace VPN, and sandboxing the plugins correctly. but its finally running and mostly usable. i’m sanding the rough edges atm.
I really want to use it to help fund research and public goods like linux distros and even training data. cough research that has been attacked recently… cough
People who are able and interested should check the founders blog post. those who sign up and help really get this off the ground (currently) get to decide what features go in what tiers and help prioritize the feature list.
edit re: record labels
yeah that is a problem but I’ve accounted for it a bit. first the base tier has enough to cover that cost. secondly most independent artists are not part of those deals and can just sign up. the actual return from this system are up to 7x what spotify/google pay out in streaming revenue not counting the revenue generated from the storage layer.
This might sound like an off-the-wall suggestion, but waaaaaay back in the day, Trent Reznor was in on the torrent game, he had an account on Oink.UK way way way back. He described it as the best music store in existence.
It’s a shot in the dark, but reach out to him, that’s a person who could really help something like this become a reality who has the money and the knowledge of the music legal system to approach it. He also likely has similar ideology, as evidenced by his joy at Oink.UK. I know he cares about how much artists get paid and wants it to be better, he also understood the value proposition Oink offered. Anyway, perhaps the kind of famous person who could help this project really get off the ground.
https://www.wired.com/2007/10/trent-reznor-on/
smile thanks for the idea, I have a list of people to try and reach out to. retrovibed does have a free tier. just installing it helps because having users around is at least an indicator I can use in discussions. and it is a fully fledged torrent application so its usable ;)