SIZZLE!!! Bluetail is a decentralized record company that uses max level web3 tech to pay its signed artists better than Spotify, offer fairer contracts than Universal Music, get music licensed everywhere from the Otherside to your local 7-11, and give its execs (ApeDAO members!) access to party with the A-list music crowd! When the DAO reaches out to artists and fans with something that helps them, they will become active DAO members!
FORMAT: Taking @ssp1111’s and @Halina.eth’s advice (less words! I tried so hard! ), I’m setting this AIP draft up as a short forum presentation with ALL the details put into a whitepaper here. Most of the links you see below lead to the relevant whitepaper sections. Without further ado…
Proposal Name: Bluetail
Proposal Category: Core: Ecosystem Fund Allocation
Abstract | Two or three sentences that summarize the proposal.
Bluetail is a decentralized record company that uses max level web3 tech to pay its signed artists better than Spotify, offer fairer contracts than Universal Music, get music licensed everywhere from the Otherside to your local 7-11, and give its execs (ApeDAO members!) access to party with the A-list music crowd…
all while bringing light to talent in the underserved international music scene. Bluetail will kickstart 100,000 new music careers and bring incredible, weird, brilliant, awe-inspiring new music to the world from the world’s hidden corners. And we’ll all have the time of our lives making it happen!
What is Bluetail?
Audius (streaming) + NFTfi (defi) + BoredJobs (services) = Bluetail
Very important questions from good folks like @Galleon, @Novocrypto, @0xSword and @Amplify are answered in the whitepaper, including stats on the international music scene/Spotify, how Bluetail will reach international musicians and audiences (Halina, check this video, skip to 20:55; event planning is like, our thing, we’ll do the same thing we’ve done for gaming in music), and even some stuff you guys didn’t ask, like why Bluetail’s structure is actually necessary to push forward web3 music tech, the security we’ll have in place for our wallets and our plan for transparency in the building process.
This page is the simplest explanation of Bluetail.
This page is tokenomics, which we’ll ideally tap Amplify to…well, amplify when the AIP passes. All stuff that would make this draft Tl;dr. The whitepaper will be updated constantly as the project matures.
Motivation | A statement on why the APE Community should implement the proposal.
- Bluetail + EventsByApecoin = DAO Members at Coachella! — Once the DAO has tech to promote, it has a legit excuse to get involved with the exciting music industry, which means IRL trips for motivated DAO members to attend awesome industry events!
- Bringing ApeDAO tech to the masses! — Bluetail builds on tech and ideas from Horizen’s $APE staking, ApeTapes, Silo Finance (@Tenzent) BoredJobs, ApeClub, and ThriveCoin (@thrivegiraffe). Ideally, we want all of these teams involved in the Bluetail process to everyone’s mutual benefit, and we have started conversations with all of them to see where our mutual interests lie!
- Branding! — a16z brands itself through the mainstream tech it backs. ApeDAO should, too. Bluetail is ApeDAO’s music AirBNB! Getting into industries like music also invites AAA sponsors from entertainment to work with ApeDAO in this and other projects (and we bring partners like Amazon, Twitch and Microsoft to the table).
- $APE musicians = VIPs! — Bluetail rolls out to Apes first, giving Ape musicians first dibs at the best streaming rates. $APE holders also get perks like higher LTV, premium positioning on the site, higher chances of getting picked for experiences like Coachella business trips, and anything else we can think of to reward first adopters and beta testers.
- Lasting value! — Bluetail is designed to bring continual value to the DAO without eating up the DAO’s entertainment/gaming budget year after year. The platform builds on Ape tech to fund itself through yield for 2 years (so no loss of principal!), after which, licensing fees and other revenue drivers will sustain it!
Rationale | An explanation of how the proposal aligns with the APE Community’s mission and guiding values.
Boldness
Building a full-service, decentralized music label and web3 PRO for underserved musicians is well ahead of the tech currently in place. Bluetail is weird, hard, and new — but 100% feasible and worth it.
Equality
100% of the Bluetail core tokenomics structure is based in $APE, and for good reason. One $APE = one $APE.
Transparency
Bluetail has processes in place to ensure transparency that any DAO member can check at any time.
Collective Responsibility
Bluetail is here to ensure no record company ever fools or forces another creator out of IP or publishing rights with black box contracts — leaving things way better than we found them.
Persistence
Because we’re disrupting the snakey music industry, we expect some part of the process to make our lawyers rich. But it’s budgeted for, and to push towards success, even if it isn’t exactly a straight line.
Key Terms (optional) | Definitions of any terms within the proposal that are unique to the proposal, new to the APE Community, and/or industry-specific.
Find all key terms here.
Specifications | A detailed breakdown of the platforms and technologies that will be used.
Node.js, React, Next.js, Solidity, HTML, CSS, Cadence, MongoDB, Terraform
Steps to Implement | The steps to implement the proposal, including associated costs, manpower, and other resources for each step where applicable.
Associated Costs (in $, not $APE)
Front end devs - $20000
Back end devs - 78750
UX/UI - 7000
Project management - 75000
Solidity devs - 112500
Tokenomics/business analyst - 42000
Grant writer - 50000
Legal - 112500
Discretionary - 50000
The team would require 10% of the budget up front to get all legal/tech/project management working in parallel. After that, payouts are milestone based.
A huge part of my job specifically will be to shake the tree from the Mantis partnership ecosystem to find additional sources of funding. We have done repeated good business with A-list sponsors like Amazon, Twitch, Microsoft, Nike, Discover, Verizon and many others. Our Kickback Cup event was recently funded by Amazon Prime and Riot Games for over $1.4 million dollars! When additional sponsors are found, we can rework the budget to reduce unpaid milestone payouts from the DAO. We will do everything we can from Day 1 to help the DAO manage its financial risk.
Please see this chart for further breakdown of costs.
All unused funds will be returned to the DAO.
Manpower
We require no manpower from the DAO to build Bluetail. However, DAO members will be invited to participate in the testing process and rewarded for doing so.
Other Resources
A separate AIP will be necessary to fund Bluetail once it is built.
Timeline | Relevant timing details, including but not limited to start date, milestones, and completion dates.
Start date - 1/5/2023
Infrastructure complete - 6/15/2023
Testing complete/v. 1.0 rollout to $APE community on mainnet - 12/31/2023
Rollout to general public - 4/17/2024
Fully automated record label (0 funding, 0 people required to run) - 12/31/2024
There is definitely room for a faster timeline if we built this alone. However, because we want so many other Ape founders as a part of Bluetail, this timeline allows for bottlenecks in their schedules as well. There is already a lot overlapping tech in the Ape ecosystem, and we believe it’s because founders work in silo. Ideally, Bluetail will not.
I’m also factoring in potential bottlenecks from legalities concerning the highly regulated and gated music business. It would be simpler to build a strictly web3 platform, but because part of Bluetail’s mission is to serve artists as a PRO that can license to max businesses, there may be legal hurdles here.
Please see here for further breakdown of timeline.
Overall Cost | The total cost to implement the proposal.
Total ask is 125,000 $APE (a little wiggle room to account for possible price drops). Should $APE price increase while monies are in Bluetail team custody and funds are not needed, they shall be immediately returned to the DAO upon request.
Thanks for reading! We look forward to a fruitful discussion that ends up putting the DAO right on the cutting edge of the music biz. Help Bluetail make music a fairer business — for good!