Bitcoin Forum

Alright everyone. It’s official!

The BitShares Music Foundation launched it’s pre-sale from the Inside Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas.

www.bitsharesmusicfoundation.org and www.peertracks.com

Non-technical paper here: http://bitshares.org/papers/music/btsmusic-peertracks-non-technical-paper.pdf

Let’s start with a TL;DR shall we?!

The BitShares Music blockchain is a Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) that runs off of Delegated Proof Of Stake (DPOS) Each unit of this DAC is called a NOTE.

PeerTracks is the first front end website/app that will plug into and read the blockchain.
This site will allow artist to:
create their profile
upload their music
set their own prices
And if they want,
issue out their own Artistcoins

Artistcoins are user issued assets
The artist can sell (or give) them to his fans in order to fund his career. The artistcoin is tied to that artists sales (ON blockchain sales only). Meaning “Snoopcoin” can go up in value when he sells a lot of songs, albums, merch, tickets from PeerTracks (or any other future front end site that decides to plug into the BitShares Music blockchain) etc. The artist can also bring value to his coins by offering different perks or benefits to his coinholders whether it’s through hardcoded token controlled access or from him just tweeting to his fans “Anyone with 200+ Snoopcoins get in the show for free, anyone with over 500 can hang out backstage after the show”

From a user’s perspective
Creates an account
Stream or purchase music you like using BitUSD, a non-volatile crypto-currency (BitAsset). Know your funds are going directly from your wallet to the artist’s wallet. No middle man. PeerTracks does not hold any funds, it’s all done directly on blockchain. Find artists you think have potential and buy their coin
See that coin's value rise or fall depending on:
-sales generated by that artist on the site
-perks offered to that artist’s coinholders

Notice that the user's of this DAC do not have to know what a blockchain is, nor do they EVER see a private or public key.


Now if you do not care for music but you see value in a decentralized music industry and would like to be a part of it, you can get yourself some Notes.
Notes are the unit of this blockchain.
This blockchain makes revenue from fees.
-transaction fees
-the fee when someone registers their username
-the fee when an artist initially creates his artistcoins

Those fee are destroyed (proof of burn) essentially returning that stake to each Note holder.
So if you own 1% of all Notes, after a year of burned fees, you might now own 1.1% of the network’s worth.

Keep in mind that Notes are also votes. You can vote for or against whichever delegate you desire. Contrast this with Bitcoin (try booting a mining pool out of power!)

Notes are also the collateral for the BitUSDs used to purchase music, merch and whatever else the artist will decide to sell from the sites plugged into the Music blockchain. The more BitUSD are in existence, the more collateral is needed (demand for Notes = price rise)

For more information, check out:
www.bitsharesmusicfoundation.org
and
www.peertracks.com

You can also check out the non-technical paper here: http://bitshares.org/papers/music/btsmusic-peertracks-non-technical-paper.pdf

Please feel free to ask any questions!

These are great news, congratulations!

I was waiting a long time for something like this. Also have few friends that are music producers that are also interested in distributed service for music publication and sharing.

Great work and keep it up  ;)

So what you're trying to say is that you're using DPOS and blockchains to build a decentralized music distribution/crowdfunding service? Sounds like it has a real chance of being the next big crypto killer-app! Bravo!

wow ... agsexplorer.com shows 160 BTC already donated .. in three days .. quite nice! ... go for it!

I am exited to see this project up and hopefully running soon!

Good Job *kingcob*

Kingcob, you guys are doing an amazing job.

I first heard you guys from your interview on the Bitcoins and Gravy show.  Its is very exciting seeing this all come together.

Looks like your off to a great start.

Sooooo basically this is going to compete with the entire record industry and itunes????

 ??? ??? ??? ???

I guess it's time for some due diligence.

How and where do I buy this coin? ???

It's not a coin .. it's a DAC .. and you can get shares in it via the pre-sale!
or buy them once they are traded!

Click the bitsharesmusicfoundation link in the OP: www.bitsharesmusicfoundation.org

Come up with anything?

As far as I know it undercuts iTunes a lot but I looked into it a while ago.
Also allowing artists to issue coins that allow their fans to not just enjoy sharing their favourite music but profit from it too plus other benefits that can be passed onto coin holders is mind blowing.

I've seen this one being worked on in the BitShares forums for a while and I think the main guy is very well connected with a lot of music industry experience, so I know a lot of work has already gone into this. Excited about this one!

Its confusing because there are two seperate things being built simultaneous lee. The Bitshares music Dac is the for handling the Artiscoin. It's functions as a sort stock exchange for the coin(notes). PerrTracks is jsut the fstore for buying songs,merchandise (maybe tickets) and artist discovery. A person can come to PeerTracks, buy something a never touch notes part. If they however want to invest more in the artist or access more exclusiv things then the can invest the artistcoin. 

Think of a decentralized iTunes, plus Kickstarter and maybe Pandora. Oh, and you can spend your crypto to buy songs. Artists get to keep much more of the money AND they can issue their own 'shares'. The potential for this DAC is enormous. Looking forward to PeerTracks. By the way, "kingcob" (aka "cob" in the BitShares forum) is a longtime forum member and trusted developer from the BitShares team. And Eddie Corral, the industry partner behind PeerTracks/BitShares Music, has deep experience working with the major record labels and signing acts like Destiny's Child. Just in case you wondered if this team has the juice to pull off its project, here's Eddie's bio from another site:

Eddie Corral brings twenty five plus years in the business of music – his vast knowledge and experience of the industry stretches from record producer to music publisher, concert promotions to radio broadcast. Corral was a regional A&R rep for Universal/Republic, Atlantic, Arista and Epic Records, during that time he successfully had five major label signings with a total sales volume of eleven million records sold. Corral is a current fifteen year voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science (NARAS). Corral started at an early age working for touring production group Houston based Pace Concerts which would later lead him to Clear Channel Radio and eventually Radio One where he was hired for special project events for over forty radio stations across the country – Corral booked and promoted radio concerts and also produced several compilation records that were sold throughout the network. His passion today is finding and working with new talent.

the projects looks promising and in the case you want to put some eggs in one extra basket - take a look.

some more information https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9360.0


the pre-sales

- will last 60 days
- 5.000.000 Notes will auctioned every day

after 60 days 20% of the sharesupply will be sold

35% will be allocated to PTS holders (Snapshot was taken October 10th)
35% will be allocated to AGS
10% will be allocated to the bitshares music foundation

in the bitshares music chain the delegates can create new shares after voting. so the initial sharesupply could increase in the coming years.

Best idea i've seen yet involving music. Following this.

if this has the bitshares name, does that mean there will be a PTS snapshot for it?

Yes, there was a PTS snapshot, details here: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9387.0

If you're a PTS holder, you should already have some stake in this system.

Looks great, but I don't like the pre-sale format where you are supposed to send coins without knowing what you'll get and may end up with a totally different amount to someone paying the same price the day before or afterwards. Its like a cross between a presale and a lottery -- and I'm not a gambler.

This format allow to distribute exact amount of shares without price fixing, if you don't like a lottery you can donate same amount every day during whole period and at the end you will have shares by average price.

Agree. This gets more interesting the more I look into it.

this guy seems to talk sense

ok so the snapshot was day before yesterday. to bad i must have missed that info, I would have gotten some PTS back. anyways good luck, sounds interesting, I'll look for it on bter.com.

you bitshares guys should try and do an announce ahead of time here!

Bitshares community is not enought present on Twitter

He does have a point regarding the target of the DAC promo campaign, that it might make for faster adoption if it were marketed to the artists rather than the fans. But why does he think that's not happening? I thought the OP was very comprehensive and dealt with EVERYONE equally.

The one thing this guy doesn't get is that the BitShares Music DAC is the very OPPOSITE of centralization. Perhaps he didn't read the OP fully or doesn't understand blockchain technology. He's here so there's still hope it will one day "click" and he will see how decentralized the BitShares Music DAC is, and even more secure than BitCoin's POW blockchain tech is.

Finally I think this music producer dude is typical of the fast paced microwave world we all live in when he says:

Oh really? Let me hear you tell me "in a few sentences" how the electric grid works, or your cell phone, or nuclear power or ... blockchain technology. Why do you expect difficult things to be made so simple? It devalues the accomplishment. If it was easy to explain it would be easy to do and it just isn't.

And jumping through hoops is what we all have to do to play in the crypto world, at least to some degree. It's an evolving industry and convenience will come with time. Compare blockchain technology to the introduction of the Internet. How many years did it take the Internet to evolve to be user friendly and convenient. Darpa started the internet (ARPANET) way back in the 1960s. I began using it for email in the 1980s, and the WWW wasn't invented until the 1990s. So your microwave, A.D.D. short attention span, give it to me in a few sentences attitude doesn't sound very realistic IMO.

The guy may be right that it will take awhile to realize the design goals of decentralized freedom blockchain technology promises as long as we have to "jump through hoops" to participate in it, but it's gonna happen baby, count on it. The human race cries for freedom, and financial freedom is long overdue!

I think I get it in a couple of sentences for the lay person.

Buy/Sell/Trade shares in your favorite bands, artists, groups with the tokens that are created by those bands, artists, and groups through bitshares music DAC.
Buy music through peertracks & possibly cash in some tokens if the band declares 1 token is worth 1 download or something.

It is true you missed the PTS snapshot and they could have announced it earlier. However if you want to have a stake in the Music DAC only, the pre-sale price is a much better deal and you have 50+ days to buy in this way.

I believe, the plan is the token holders to get paid whenever somebody buys a song. In that sense you get paid more when the band sells more songs, as opposed to the price to be determined by the bands themselves.

That's exactly it. When you own coins for an artist, say OneDirectionCoin for example, you get a small percentage of all their sales. If you thought they were the sh*t before everyone else did and bought their coins cheap you'd be doing very very well right now. This is why early coin holders become instant grassroots marketing for the band.

Got it. Pretty simple to understand actually. The process may have a little learning curve for the everyday user but I've seen my nephew use an Iphone at age 3 so I'm confident 13 - 60 year olds will have no problem.

BitShares Music is literally only one industry where BitShares' Toolkit will shake the status quo of monopolies...giving power back to the people who actually create value as opposed to those who chain them down.

Looking forward to this...

http://www1.agsexplorer.com/ here you can see what has been donated the last days and what is donated up to now today.

Hi,

You should be aware that many Bitcoiners think that all copyright laws should be eliminated.  Charlie Shrem, for instance, always references the origin of copyrights and  a few abuses before saying it should all be abolished.  A quote from another prominent Bitcoiner, Trace Mayer,


Many people with these ideas have attached themselves to Bitcoin as way of promoting their agenda.  They try to imply that people who use Bitcoin agree with this point of view so selling any kind of intellectual property for Bitcoin would be against their beliefs.  Of course many people don't believe that but the "wing nuts" are often like Kanye West at the VMA awards.

OK.
A platform that allows users to send money directly to the bands/artists. No middleman, reduced costs.
Incentivized fanbase. Turning passive listeners into active promoters and talent scouts.
We have tied price discovery with talent discovery.

Fully agree sir!
For the next 60 days we are not interested in mass adoption.. AT ALL.
The only "important" people right now are people that have crypto-currencies and that can claim their stake in the DAC by sending it to our pre-sale btc address.
Our only focus right now is the crypto-community. They understand blockchain crowdfunding. We will not waste any funds on marketing outside this circle.

Now when the product approaches completion, THAT'S when you will see mainstream advertising campaigns.


Well we are in luck, cuz that's exactly what this DAC + site intends to do.

eliminate most middle men.
No more itunes fees, credit card costs, etc.
transparant ledger (very useful for paying out or receiving royalties)

And we have a way for the small guy to get discovered. spending hours looking for new music is no longer a "waste of time". It is now a puductive income producing activity or an investmnet you could say.
We are turning the users into incentivized talent scouts. Once they discover a potentially good band, they have massive incentive to share around this kid's music and hope he becomes a star.

And btw we haven't even touched the Token Controlled Access features this platform allows.

Basically, everyone will be on equal ground. You will see the rebirth of the musical middle class ^^
Not only poor artists OR millionaire superstars. You will get everything in between since money goes directly from consumer to band. No middleman. and promoters are now done via P2P incentives.

Is it only me that thinks this pre-sale is terribly undervalued?

I personally think that not buying into it is the equivalent of not selling 2 pizzas for 10,000 BTC. Only time will tell.

Thanks.

How exciting!  So I have PTS, how do I claim my Bitshares Music notes?

i know it is too early..
but i'm following notes subscription on https://blockchain.info/it/charts/received-per-day?timespan=30days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=37X8DHpfiimB7PU5y35rfBcg5Vxj2R6umL

averaging btcs/day on the graph i can see 30btc/day.
if each day are sold 5 millions note, i think 30btc/5 millions --> 600sat each note.

testz,
it is this correct?
or not?

thanks

I am not testz, but that is correct.

 :) tonyk answer is correct.

Agreed, this DAC is very exciting based on its potential & I am even more confident in the project after meeting the team. If you held PTS in a local PTS wallet during the snapshot- wait for the BitShares Music Proto DAC to launch and then import your PTS wallet keys into the client. From what I understand, this won't be launched until Bitsapphire has completed development on the PeerTracks web app.

If you had PTS on an exchange that honored the Oct. 10 snapshot (Poloniex, BTER, probably BTC38?) then they will end up in your account on that exchange shortly after the DAC is launched.

BTC38 honor snapshot. Only cryptsy doesn't honor any snapshots.

Thanks.  I always keep my PTS in my local wallet so I don't miss a snapshot.  I didn't even know the exchanges honored snapshots.  Cool.

I am pretty excited about this... this is IMO one of the more exciting Bitshares DACs. I love music and block chain technology, it's a marriage made in heaven! It will put more money in artists pockets and give fans a way to easily invest in artists. If this catches on it could disrupt the music industry and be a very profitable DAC.

I like indie music so I think I may be able to find a few diamonds in the rough before an artist gets big and potentially profit from that.. so that'd be cool too. I have definitely caught on to at least a few bands before they made it big. :)

thanks tonik and testz :-)

i'm reading on bitsharestalk but nothing ETA for wallet...
any news?

i think poloniex and Bter too!

No ETA, but I think they will run the network soon after pre-sale will finish. Maybe we will see few test runs, but if it's 90% clone of BitSharesX it's not necessary.

testz,
I know i'm OT bit
do you know some bitshareX multipool?

Only this one https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=6236.0
But unfortunately it's not ready yet  :(

I do not see the need for the pre-sale to finish before the wallet is released.
But I will follow this with my usual disclaimer - I am not the developer and I have nothing to do with them, other then trusting their words, so far.

Bought some Notes, Let's get it! *jeezy voice

I sent some BTC to the pre-sale address.

maybe in the beginning the value will be low and you can buy your NOTES after release.

To all interested in the pre-sale:

You can track the current approximate NOTES / BTC donated on http://www1.agsexplorer.com/

Looks to me that the daily donation average may be heading upwards again! Get your NOTEs while they are cheap!

Could you explain this in more detail, please? This seems to be the main way that notes are meant to gain value but I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around what you mean. Say I'm a merchant selling Foo Fighters t-shirts on the blockchain. Do I need to purchase notes to do so?

Great interview on Bitcoins and Gravy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2jsubf/bitcoins_and_gravy_episode_38_bitshares_music/
https://soundcloud.com/bitcoins-and-gravy/bitcoins-and-gravy-episode-38-bitshares-music-foundation

Answered a lot of questions I had.  Very excited about this.

trying to understand this, but I'm not convinced this would actually generate any significant amount of revenue.  I don't see how you're going to attract the large amounts of artists and fans who would be necessary to allow this ecosystem survive.  

I like the innovation, even if I'm still not totally clear on it, but it seems to me that what you're really building here, blockchains aside, is a social network.  so for that you really need to sell us on the marketing strategy.

Have you read the non-technical paper?
Can you tell me your exact concerns?

It's all about aligning incentives. Artists are coming to us, we don't need to go to them.

That being said, we ARE going to them anyway haha. A lot we can't disclosure yet.

Bitcoin is experimental and in beta.  this is an experimental system on top of that.

Basically you create your own social network.  You can issue a "coin" or "shares" in your artist sort of like crowdfunding.  Since people own a "piece" of the artist they theoretically promote them in order to sell their "shares" at a higher value at some point.  you can offer coins for actions like commenting on a  story, purchasing products, etc. and you can redeem the coins too for whatever.

While system uses the decentralized blockchain, but the artist is not.  To offer a "coin" or "shares" for an IPO opens up so many legal questions I would not know where to start.  You could be seen as an administrator of a digital currency by FinCEN, offering a security by the SEC, a commodity by the Commodity Futures Trading commission, State laws, ... they mention Napster in the white paper but they failed to mention the total legal fees it generated.

Please answer my question about the collateral and the usage of notes. How will notes be used once the system is up and running if all transactions are being executed using BitUSDs?

Also, how will you safeguard against people posting other artists' songs and claiming them as their own in a decentralized fashion? Will this not necessitate some type of centralized gatekeeper to assess each artist and verify that they indeed have the rights to what they are offering? Do you expect this to be an expensive and labor-intensive process?

If I understand things correctly there is nothing anyone can do via Bitshares to stop that from happening and you would be left with the legacy court system.

You have hit on what many Bitcoiners gloss over.  Decentralization is not for everything and it is only useful in certain specific use cases.  For instance, .bit domains using namecoin.  If people type in "Microsoft.bit" they don't want to end up on some anonymous site controlled by someone on Bitcointalk.org so the system will most likely never catch on in a big way.

NOTEs are used for transaction fees. BitShares Music is going to be a fork of the current BTSX chain, which has a decentralized marketplace on chain. BTSX has market pegged assets that are collateralized by putting up at least 3x collateral of the underlying asset (in the case of BitShares Music, this will be the NOTE) in order to short bitUSD into existence. I'd recommend visiting bitsharestalk.org & wiki.bitshares.org to understand how bitUSD works better.

To answer the question of claiming other artists, http://peertracks.com will be the centralized entity that allows a user to purchase music streams and downloads. They will also handle verification of musicians I believe. They will provide the hosting services necessary for these functions. They will simply watch the blockchain to set up access control to music purchased, artist coin perks, etc. The artist coins will be traded as a user issued asset (different than a market pegged asset like bitUSD) on the chain.

So, anyone could set up their own front-end using the Music DAC blockchain, but peertracks will be launching with the DAC to provide this functionality to start.

Can someone explain to me the process of getting notes.  I sent btc to the address provided and the auction is now over.  I downloaded bitshares x client, but am somewhat confused with the interface.  Is this the platform that i am supposed to import my notes to or is there another bitshares music wallet?

Thanks,

the Notes pre-sale continues for another 41 days. every day there is an auction, so we all have to sit tight and wait for 41 more days i think.

Ok, let's wait, I am in.

There will be a new bitshares music wallet, also you can check some FAQ here http://bitsharesmusicfoundation.org/faq.html

Simpsons have done it. (Nxt)

The only "important" people right now are people that have crypto-currencies and that can claim their stake in the DAC by sending it to our pre-sale btc address.
Our only focus right now is the crypto-community. They understand blockchain crowdfunding.

Could we get some more info on the people working on this project?

Cédric Cobban seems to have a clear and well articulated vision for the project, which is great.

Eddie Corral claims to have "over 25 years in the music business working with major label artists" but the only artist connections I could find on the web were three albums I've never heard of. http://www.artistdirect.com/artist/credits/eddie-corral/1066246  http://www.allmusic.com/artist/eddie-corral-mn0001832014/credits

Here he is talking about PeerTracks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB62lQZo4xM 

About halfway through he mentions a partnership with a marketing company connected to over 1000 artists and athletes. Any more info on this?

Also, who is peer2peer360? and how is he/she related to the project?

This whole thing has huge potential if it's well executed. The concept behind it is brilliant. I'm just not quite sure how you plan on getting the musical talent on board.

I'm following the IPO on blockchain. It seems to collect 20/25 btc daily. Is not a.really big IPO at the end...

The IPO rates it at only about 2.6m USD at those prices (calculated it with 22 btc per day). It is worth way more than that!

hum.. i do not know if It is worth way more than that...
do you see the recent change from BTSX to BTS???
it was so exciting

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11464.msg151359#msg151359 ;)

20 BTC a day flowing into IPO, is extremely huge amount of money for crypto scene projects in current state of market developement. Any guess where is such a huge deamnd coming from?

I think it's comes from BitShares supporters, almost everybody who know about BitShares technology and dev team trust them and has a good feeling about BitShares Music future.

It is way undervalued at that rate.

It's not your average "coin IPO". The people behind this project (Cedric and Eddie) are out there with there public identity, they have a whitepaper, a sound business model, use reasonable technology (bitshares) and are supported by the bitshares community as well the the bitshares dev team which is a huge asset since there guys are well connected to the business / start up world.
This market (blockchain projects/startups) is dominated by network effect. That means buy into a few projects that can really work and make it to the top. This is definitely such a project.

I do believe there is some limited intent behind the coin but if these people know anything about the music scene  they know very well this project wouldn't even be able to take on even the smallest online retailer let alone the major ones. The music industry is really huge - much much larger than people generally perceive. The huge vested interests in keeping the status quo completely dwarf any possibility of further upheavals. Be assured the music industry is very tired of that now, and with justification. It was the first industry to experience the online phenomena/piracy and its only the last five years max its been able to recover. For 10 years the music industry went through many violent changes. The artists, labels and distributors have had enough. Artists now know the internet didn't empower them at all. That was made up up by P2P crowd who obviously had vested interests  The people running this project know very well it will never get off the ground in terms of any meaningful widespread adoption.

A: No major artists can ever sign up to this unless they are a completely unsigned entity (chance of that almost 0%) . That means you cannot trade their music period.
B: As well as major artist no major label will sign up. That means their vast catalogs cannot be used
C: Small and indie artists would have been the best avenue for catchment but its much to complex. Same goes for their fans.
D: When you really get down to it what is there offered here for any artist they cant already do. These days releasing a single is nothing more than PR. Its the modern day flyer.

The general public can listen to music 24/7 completely free from a wealth of sites out there. Spotify and Pandora are probably the best examples of that but there are many many more which include niche operators. When it comes to buying music its a one click operation from Apple, Amazon, Google or whatever host you wish to use. None of them require any of the public to understand anything about the behind the scenes process and they certainly dont have to worry about wallets, bitcoin, exchanges etc.

 If this project were fully genuine and serious and made in a way to genuinely empower artists and their fan base I would be all for it. But its not. This is a pure enrichment scheme for a few people using the music industry as the vehicle for it. I do take exception to that because I'm a bit pissed off at how the music industry has been kicked around and abused by anyone with any kind of vested interest - particularly the p2p evangelists.

Should you invest in this: Totally up to you. Invest in it only if you think the coins value will rise. Dont invest in it if you believe this project will change teh face of the music industry. Its pure gambing.

You didn't mention any reason for why you have that impression.

It's hard to say if a project is serious and can go through the roof. There are a few indicators that this is a serious entrepreneurial effort. The people behind it are publicly known and the business model is sound.

You didn't give any specific reason for you sentiment.
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-164-the-page-and-the-notes
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11669.msg153678#msg153678

Wouldn't importing your private key be dangerous? Isn't that the main thing your not supposed to give anyone?

All of these markets crack me up. There just aren't enough people involved in crypto to support these projects. We are pretty deeply nested here in one hell of a minor niche aren't we? We have the tiny fraction of people that are familiar with Bitcoin, an even tinier fraction that are familiar with Bitshares and an even smaller group of people interested in funding + selling music using Bitshares.  This Venn diagram of users contains like 9 people.  ;)

This might have been successful if they had at least jumped up a level and created this around Bitcoin. This would probably have been too small of a demographic as well. This platform using regular currencies might have had a small chance of developing a user base.

If Bitcoin has created anything, it's a surplus of extremely intelligent, talented individuals creating tons of failed projects. Almost as if they are too intelligent to realize the majority of people are looking for easy to consume services. How is etherium doing? Really, how could a turing complete programming language written around a cryptocurrency not be a smash?!

Hopefully these guys are doing what others have suggested, just taking advantage of people with an IPO with no real expectations for this to do anything. It's going to look like 99.9% of alt-coin charts over the last year, huge interest at first and the a slow decline into nothingness.

If you can't explain it on a t-shirt nobody is going to use it.

It would be dangerous if you couldn't audit the code (or trust someone who has). Luckily this project is open source!

Also, the main users of this platform won't even have to know that it is based around blockchain technology, they can just trade their artistcoins, buy / stream music, etc. on the PeerTracks frontend or mobile clients. The fact it is based around a blockchain allows for a better business model to be created but it doesn't mean that the mainstream users will have to be familiar and up to snuff on the details of those technologies.

You are completely right with your analysis about the need for easy to use products and clear value propositions.
Those that own notes (token of bitshares music) will not be those that use the service! That should not be confused. The notes are not directly necessary to use the services of Peertracks. Note holders are the shareholders in the "bitshares music company/DAC". As for the company / shareholder analogy see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT9ICMfUDjk
Notes derive their value from being collateral for the usd derivatives traded on the bitshares music blockchain. The end user (high school kids, artists) never have to own notes they just need the bitusd (usd derivatives = market pegged assets) to buy music. How that works on bitshares as well as on bitshares music see https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11674.msg154433#msg154433

any updates?

Check out the new info site they launched: http://whatarenotes.info/

do you know how i can acquire the notes i won during the auction phase?

Import the private keys from the Bitcoin address you sent from into the ƀitshares client. NOTEs are trading as a user issued asset on the ƀitshares exchange, they will automatically be claimed by your keys as you import them and then show up in your balance.

The 0.9 release should be out within the next few days if you don't have a client; otherwise 0.8 is running smooth for most users.

Peertracks (http://peertracks.com/) will be at MIDEM (http://www.midem.com/). They are undergoing a closed beta and proto-DAC launch before they open the service up to the public later this year. Learn more about the core asset of the DAC, the NOTE (http://coinmarketcap.com/assets/bitshares-music/), at this url (http://whatarenotes.info/). I recently picked up a cool 166k NOTE for 0.5 BTC. IMO that's a steal.  8)

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,16210.0.html

Sure they wait to launch to public until the client run smooth ,,, hope this happen soon  ;D

Is this project dead?  Is the dev still around?

Check it out here (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/board,54.0.html).

You can also join the discussion on Slack.

https://peertracksmuse.herokuapp.com/

Would anyone mind posting an update here in this thread?