As a musician, you know the importance of reaching your audience and sharing your music. Traditional music distribution channels can be expensive, slow, and lack control over your content. But there's a new solution gaining traction among musicians: storing music using IPFS and sharing via the Hive blockchain. The beauty of using this method means that you are in ultimate control over your content! So let's first talk about what IPFS and Hive are before we talk about how to use them to share your tunes.
What is IPFS?
InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing files. IPFS does not rely on a central server to store files; instead, files are stored in a distributed network of nodes, much like how decentralized blockchains operate, which makes them more accessible and resilient to censorship.
What is the Hive Blockchain?
If you are not already a member and you found this post from the outer reaches of the internet, here is a quick intro to what the Hive blockchain is all about. Hive is a decentralized social media platform that allows users to share content and earn cryptocurrency rewards in the form of Hive, Hive Backed Dollars and a variety of second layer community tokens, or Hive-Engine tokens. Being that Hive is an immutable blockchain, it gives people a way to be able to own their online identity, content, build a reputation, and transact currencies in a decentralized way.
Our BlockTunes front end is a music focused community built on the Hive blockchain that also has it's own MUSIC token that musicians and fans alike can earn for posting and interacting in addition to Hive and HBD. You can use these MUSIC tokens to purchase MUSIC NFTs on our marketplace.
The Benefits of Using IPFS and Hive to Store and Share Music
IPFS and Hive offer several benefits to musicians:
Decentralization
One significant advantage of using IPFS and Hive is their decentralization. By distributing your music across a network of nodes, you avoid central servers' risk of shutdown or censorship. Unlike the current mainstream services which are in complete control over your content and accounts, this give you the ultimate say so over how you share your art! Nobody can shut you down, but if you are caught abusing the system and sharing content that is not yours and claiming it as your own, you could get downvoted into oblivion, so there is a layer of accountability.
Transparency
Hive's blockchain is entirely transparent, allowing anyone to see all the transactions that occur on the network. This makes it easier to track your earnings and ensure that you receive fair payment for your music as well as it allows you to see how the community values your content. This can be a good metric to use to see if you need to make adjustments to improve your music so the community finds it more valuable, or that you just need to get out in the community and engage more in other people's content to drive them to pay attention to you!
Lower Costs
Storing music on a traditional platform can be expensive. IPFS and Hive provide a low-cost alternative. You can store your music for free and earn cryptocurrency rewards for sharing your music with your fans. So not only does it cost nothing to use, you actually earn money on your posts!
NFT.Storage
NFT.Storage is a free, open-source service that allows you to store your music on IPFS. It is primarily used to store NFTs for minting on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, and other EVM chains, but really can be used for any IPFS file storage. What is cool about this platform is that it not only stores your files on IPFS, but they are also uploaded and stored on the Filecoin decentralized storage system.
To use NFT.Storage, upload your music file to the website, and a URL is created, which you can then use to retrieve your music file. When you share your music on Hive, you can include the URL in your post to show ownership and enable easy access to your music in a decentralized manner.
EDIT TO POST- Share Audio link Via Hive
We removed the HTML audio tag from the section because it is not working properly with the Hive condensor for some reason as it did in the past, may be something with the last hard fork that affected it.
But what you can do is share the URL for the file on Hive so that when the user click on it, it will open the file in a new tab so they can listen.
After you upload your file to NFT.storage, or whatever IPFS gateway you decide to use, the you will get the URL from the action menu, or just click the CID to open the file and copy the URL from the address bar.
Then you can create a link for the audio file to be played like this link
Conclusion
Storing your music using IPFS and sharing it to the Hive blockchain via BlockTunes is a new and exciting way to distribute your music. It provides more control over your content, lower costs, and easy access for your audience. By using NFT.Storage to store your music and adding a link to the file on your Hive post, you can share your music with your fans and create a new revenue stream with cryptocurrency rewards.
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