Bitcoin Association recently spoke to Michał Ścisłowski, founder and CEO of Soundoshi, the next-gen streaming platform that uses microtransactions and the features of a truly scalable blockchain to take streaming to a whole new level.

Ścisłowski discussed the innovative potential of his platform and how it solves some of the major problems facing the music streaming business today.

The problems in the music industry

Ścisłowski began by outlining some of the problems the music industry is currently facing, including the imbalance between streaming royalties and artist compensation. He noted that the current pro rata model heavily favours big names in the music industry.

While the diversity of artists and a wide selection are an important part of the attraction of a streaming platform, lesser-known artists do not get a fair share of profits from the platform. Ścisłowski describes this model as ‘cannibalistic’.

If you think of the artists on a streaming platform as a pyramid, with the best-known artists at the top and unknown artists at the bottom, then this model distributes substantial profits only to the very top of the pyramid, he said.

Although, the mid-tier and lower top-tier artists draw substantial attention and make up for a big share of streams as well. A reason for this is the lack of transparency in the industry. making it difficult for artists or their labels and publishers to track and collect royalties owed to them.

How Soundoshi brings music streaming to the next level

As opposed to the pro-rata model that distributes subscription revenue only among the very top-tier artists, Soundoshi offers a pay-as-you-go model. The revolutionary part about this is that this model allows for direct payments between artists and their audience, Ścisłowski said.

Soundoshi also enables users to buy songs as an NFT, meaning bought songs can be streamed for free. In his demonstration of the Soundoshi app, Ścisłowski showcases how users can do this.

An essential part of Soundoshi’s functionality is the BSV blockchain which acts as a scalable platform that allows for on-chain data storage. Users stream a song directly from the blockchain and pay small amounts of money for it.

This requires no technical knowledge of a user, said Ścisłowski. The design is intuitive and does not differ from other platforms. Instead of a subscription model, users charge their account, which deducts the corresponding micropayments to the artist when streaming.

Soundoshi demonstration

This episode of Blockchain Hustlers also includes a demonstration by Ścisłowski on how Soundoshi works, including:

• A walkthrough of the Soundoshi platform;

• How music streams on Soundoshi work, and how they differ from other platforms;

• The different ways that artists can monetise their content;

• Blockchain integration, NFTs and other features.