Music, video, films take more time than a blog post

Steemit is great for short-form content, but with it's 7 day curation opportunity you cannot expect to earn enough money for your music album or even track as I wrote before. Film production is even more expensive and time consuming. 7 days is also too short to market your content and repeating the same thing can be seen as spamming or plagiarism by @Chteetah. However other people can and will enjoy and write about your content, say it is a film or music track and so this is great for getting more exposure.

Getting paid for resteems

Getting exposure is great but at this moment you won't get any money as an author when somebody publishes your work on his or her blog. And even if you would make a deal about marketing your work you'd have to strike this deal with every potential marketer separately. Plus it would be better if people would find out themselves rather than being paid to do it. Saves a lot of money too since your giving the right incentive.

Earn for your hard work

So in an ideal world I imagine it would go sort-of this way:

1. You publish your music / video / art on Steemit
2. You get some attention and upvotes for 7 days.
3. Someone likes your music / video / art and writes a post about it.
4. She earns author awards and curation awards from your work.
5. You get paid a percentage of her author awards.

Then it gets murky. Should everybody get the same slice? Should the original author create a smart contract? I'd say if you don't create a smart contract then there would be a default contract. Maybe it would value your work according to your reputation, previous pay outs, Steem power? But it can't judge quality of your work.



the DECENT project

DECENT is a blockchain project which aims be the iTunes on the blockchain.

These use cases include: Blogging and publishing (comparable to Medium); Soundcloud-like music publishing; e-book publishing alternatives to Amazon; software sales; photo sharing (such as sites like Shutterstock); electronic newspaper publishing; cost-effective academic paper publishing; video and audio streaming; indie games development; and, peer-to-peer energy exchange. The latter covering due diligence of power plants and smart meters data management.

The platform is looking to offer content creators a “better deal” than industry giants such as Amazon.

“Writers lose over 30-75% of their profits when publishing with Amazon and musicians lose around 30% when they sell a track on iTunes,” the company explained.

Illegal filesharing

Someone profitting from your work without you as the original author getting nothing is not very kind and defeats having your work on any blockchain or webserver. But surely companies like Apple and Spotify are making profits and I don't see them going after file sharers.

We can’t really do something with [illegal file sharing].

We know thus where it comes from and wether it is shared

[Digital fingerprinting] will in one of the next next versions and it will be stored in the DECENT blockchain.

AMA Session with DECENT's founder, Matej Michalko

Rewards pool

While DECENT does use Graphene and other ideas from Steem and Bitshares I couldn't find whether DECENT works with a rewardspool like Steem but it doesn't look like it. You can set the price of your content but I'm not sure if you can let curators decide like in Steem. But on the bright side:

Authors will be paid instantly

And

[DECENT will have] user adjustable smart contracts according to the DECENT API [which are] adjustable to some extent

Furthermore

Decent will be able to pegged to a price like euro

Or converted automatically to your preferred fiat currency such as USD, euro or Chinese yuan and you'll have it in your bank account.

Whaleshares worker proposal

Since Steemit has so many creative users and DECENT the technology for monetizing eloborate content it would make sense to connect the two. I propose to create a link of some sorts to leverage both technologies. DECENT being an open source blockchain can be read and author awards could go the original (Steem) authors if they have an account on DECENT. It would probably have the same username on both blockchains or keys would have to be imported. @Dtube has made a few first baby steps.

Bitshares is a great exchange and DECENT coins could be traded for Steem and vice versa.

Now on to the best part.

Remixes

The coolest thing is discovering that another artist has used your work in his or her project and not only gives you credit for it but it is used in a genuine way you haven't thought about yet. That said, the worst thing is discovering that someone used your work for crappy purpouses or even blatant plagiarism.

I don't see DECENT offering any sollution to this now or in the future. But if you do, let me know in the comments.

As a musician I know stuff gets stolen and reused all the time. I think this is a good thing but credit where credit's due. Digital fingerprinting could help out here but I'm not sure if it could find my drumloop in your song. If it could, I could have a standard smart contract maybe saying:

If you use this work and make money with it, I want a slice of your earnings by how much you used it.

Video remixes

On YouTube there are users who will use parts of your video to prove a point. Documentaries or music videos are good examples. But there are also other assets you need like a soundtrack, effects such as titles and translations (subtitles) to name few. By being able to pay someone fairly cooperations and relationships can be nurtured.

But make no mistake. It is tricky to value art. Manage expectations, write good contracts all work for the socially or technically inclined. How cool is it to appear on the credits of a crowdfunded film collaboration?

Trade assets

Most of the time you create a bunch of cool stuff which goes into a drawer. Riffs, melodies, rhymes, rythms, beats, flicks, lucky goofups you name it. Why shouldn't they be out there too? And if they aren't any good they won't earn any money and disappear in the digital trashcan.

But you'd better track variations of songs, videos and other sub-assets. Then they can earn money automatically.

Following the money information

The best part out of all this is meta data. Your work won't get lost when it is tracked properly. That famous guitar riff, that intimate scene, sunset, beat. Are people playing your music while working out in the morning or relaxing to it? Do they often jump to a piece in the song? Would you remix just that piece? Don't they get that part because they are replaying your video often on that spot. Maybe then do another take, reword your sentence. Brilliant for education.

If you're writing a paper and you know you don't have to quote explicitly because a bot like @Cheetah will find it for you, how much is that worth to you? If I see someone has just copied a whole article to use in his or her post I usually retract my upvotes or even unfollow someone.

Whaletank - co-authors needed

I don't think the DECENT project can cover it all. Music needs different meta data than an ebook, image or video material. I'll be trying to pitch this idea / not-yet worker-proposal on the Whaletank tomorrow. For the first time. Wish me luck :-)

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Thank you for playing! @Nutela

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Sources:

1. Monetizing content requires tracking assets
2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/09/11/decent-crypto-investment-paves-way-to-decentralized-content-distribution-revolution/
3. http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/06/26/decent-announces-the-launch-of-its-content-platform-and-dct-tokens/
4. https://cointelegraph.com/news/decent-content-platform-and-dct-token-launch-june-30
5. AMA Session with DECENT's founder, Matej Michalko
6. YouTube Creator Academy