Please describe your proposed solution.
Sequential Squares is an innovative approach to a truly independent blockchain song release format that facilitates equity in collaboration by releasing production stems and demos alongside the song itself.
NFT minting platforms on Cardano don't have particularly robust features for music, so the process can become complicated and expensive. Most platforms that do cater to music specifically act more like labels or agencies. There is not an open source platform that allows musicians to self-publish affordably.
Sequential Squares would like to develop a suite of NFT music publishing tools to host open source so musicians can easily and affordably self-publish their content. Most of the funding from Catalyst will go toward developing a basic platform that Sequential Squares' parent company, Metapproach Industries Inc., can maintain at negligible cost. The first online home of this tool set will be ADAO, our partners in DAO management. These tools can implement a number of simple features to offer immense value to musicians and their fans. With the requested funding we intend to:
- empower musicians to self-publish with an open source music NFT publishing platform that includes comprehensive metadata standards and the ability to attach additional bonus items such as art, videos, 3D assets, etc.
- foster collaboration with NFT protocols for project files and stems that clearly establish distribution rights and expectations for remixed materials.
- develop an open source Web3 music player to query wallets, policies, etc., for music files and load them into playlists.
Beyond the scope of this Catalyst fund, Metapproach would like to add more free features to the open source publishing platform, including a basic interface for remixing stem files via sequencing that allows users to collaborate on remixes together. With enough interest, Metapproach may want to develop enhanced paid upgrades for this product like effects plugins, patches, loops, etc. Ultimately, Metapproach would like to turn Sequential Squares into a NFT marketplace that caters to music and uses the open source tools from this proposal in an onboard minting service, which can be enhanced by subscription features. If there is enough demand on the publishing side, Sequential Squares can also offer enhanced royalty distribution services that help musicians manage royalties across distribution networks (i.e. streaming services), as well as maintain complex royalty models that can automate equity back to collaborators, producers, performers, or collectors. There is also a lot of noteworthy potential that music NFTs can provide regarding token-gated access to live streamed events, as well as token-gated fan perks including in-person meetups and physical item drops, all of which Sequential Squares & Metapproach are interested in exploring down the road!
How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?
Music publishing products are lacking in the NFT space overall, especially on Cardano, but it is particularly hard to find open source options for NFT music publishing. A free tool to help musicians distribute their content globally could be a game changer for so many talented people. Cardano provides the technology needed to offer meaningful features to everyone in the digital supply chain. This would not only be a boon to the Cardano ecosystem, but to musicians struggling to keep up with a changing industry. With the pace at which global economies are becoming more engrained with the digital world, humanity needs decentralized mechanisms to preserve the arts and their proliferation. The dying corporate music industry has already done enough damage to musicians in this regard, so now is the time to use the technology available to provide independent artists with the tools they need to succeed.
The Cardano blockchain already provides an extremely sustainable infrastructure for this sort of distribution model, with immense versatility in smart contract options and royalty mechanisms; it's the music industry that could benefit from adopting more sustainable practices. By offering basic music distribution services, Sequential Squares can help self-published musicians who are adept at promoting themselves reach a broader audience. The addition of innovative add-on features, starting with the ability to attach other digital assets to the music NFTs, will allow musicians to offer their fans more value collecting music. Over time, as features are added to this platform and other inspired products evolve the concept, a community of digital music fans can emerge. Ideally the market that emerges from this technology will organically cultivate an ecosystem where fair prices and quality content are encouraged, but ultimately this will be mostly determined by the fans voting with their wallets.
How do you intend to measure the success of your project?
We will be able to track activity by observing the number of users creating NFTs on the platform, as well as the number of users buying music NFTs, average spending, average total music NFTs people buy on Cardano vs. other chains vs. legacy distribution models, etc. Once funded, a 3-5 day research campaign will be held to establish a baseline for these metrics. Sequential Squares will update these data at the end of the 6-month Catalyst campaign, then Metapproach will commit to continuing to collect data and publish metrics for at least another year in 6-month intervals. We believe this platform has the potential to become a very popular way to publish music on Cardano, but we also hope it inspires other platforms to setup more easy & affordable products that help artists with digital content distribution. Cardano's features and its overall ethos contain everything needed to facilitate a digital artistic revolution!
Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?
The team of 4 developing this software is looking for minimal resources to be able to commit 5-10 hours per week each over six months to slowly building out this very simple solution. Supplemental income is required to take on new projects, so the projects the community wants to see funded will get the most attention.
At that rate, we can set monthly milestones to track our progress:
- It should take a month from funding to organize the project on an efficient development timeline.
- Establishing a strong marketing infrastructure and presence should take about two months from funding.
- Halfway through, at three months, we should have the smart contracts and metadata protocols organized.
- During the fourth month of development we should be able to provide a tech demo of the minting service.
- After five months, the basic minting platform should be ready to launch with support for songs, stems, and albums.
- The last deliverable at the end of six months will be a basic browser-based NFT music player.
We are hoping to fully sustain six months of runway to cultivate value in our umbrella's fundraising endeavors, while publishing valuable open source tools to the Cardano ecosystem. This goal would be completely realized with optimal conditions for total success if our DAOs ❤ Cardano Catalyst Fund 10 proposal - Proto Automata - is also funded. If Sequential Squares is the only proposal Metapproach is granted funding for, however, we will have no problem meeting the minimum outputs laid out in this proposal.
Beyond Catalyst, Metapproach will continue to upgrade the open source publishing tools, making it even easier for artists to manage more complex distribution models for their music, and adding engaging features for fans to interact with.