Music streaming platform Soundoshi is set to launch its closed Beta period on 15 September in what will be a momentous day for the democratisation of the music industry.
While popular music streaming services were designed to increase listeners’ access to a growing music catalogue, the broader availability of content comes at the financial expense of artists – especially independent creators.
Despite efforts to expand benefits to artists whose music is featured at minimal cost to listeners, streaming companies have historically prioritised major labels over independent musicians whose content is critical in driving subscriptions. This model gives all the power to music streaming platforms like Spotify at the expense of the artists. Soundoshi aims to address this by ‘democratising’ music through the power of the BSV blockchain. Every time a user listens to a song on the platform, they will pay a small amount of money directly to the artist. This is made possible by the micropayment capabilities that only BSV offers.
The first Soundoshi podcast
Alongside the launch of its closed Beta access, Soundoshi is also launching its first podcast series which will focus on the Women of BSV and the surrounding ecosystem.
Like the BSV blockchain-based technology that allows artists to be paid per music stream, Soundoshi plans to use a new algorithm which will pay artists a set amount for every four minutes someone listens to their podcast. This allows artists to be paid fairly for their work and also see exactly how much time people spend listening.
Soundoshi already has plans to launch a second podcast series in the coming weeks, while the closed Beta period will also allow users to listen to several Polish artists. An open Beta period is set to follow on 15 October, while an official platform launch is scheduled for the start of 2023.
Interested users can sign up for the Soundoshi newsletter and access the closed Beta ahead of its launch on 15 September here.
A bit more about Soundoshi
Soundoshi was selected as a top startup in the inaugural Satoshi Block Dojo incubation programme held in London at the start of 2022.
Using the power of the BSV blockchain, artists will for the first time in history be able to truly own their digital assets through Soundoshi. With true ownership comes all the benefits that physical goods have – artists and users can send, gift, sell, buy and more.
Using NFT direct sales, Soundoshi leaves it up to the creators to set such prices as they see fit. Each listen to a song will cost $0.01, but artists can choose the stream price on their own between $0.01 and $0.05.
Soundoshi will also identify you as a super-fan for this particular song and award you an NFT that lets you listen to this song for free forever, kind of like how during the compact disc era, you could keep your disc and listen to the music whenever you wanted.
Interested users can find out more about Soundoshi and how it is democratising music streaming here.