Music Movers is the term we use in place of ‘distributors’, because the term ‘distributors’ has so many existing associations with existing legacy music industry practices. In practical terms a ‘Music Mover’ is anyone with a computing device that can run the bittunes P2P application.
The combined potential of everyone’s computing power and bandwidth is truly a massive resource. Add it up in your mind… How much did your laptop, PC, or tablet cost? How much do you pay per month for internet connectivity? Now, imagine multiplying the amount we all spend on these resources, and you will arrive at a truly astronomical figure, literally in the billions of dollars.
So, this is the basis of the distribution network that has been powering P2P applications like Napster, Limewire and Bittorrent for many years. However the problem has been that these networks have allowed rights encumbered music files, (owned by record companies) to be openly shared, and this has caused a lot of problems. But, it did not and does not mean that the technology itself is bad.
So, we believe there is a better way to gradually change the current music distribution paradigm, and that involves two main principles. Firstly, the new network/platform should directly assist artists to achieve significantly higher royalties by trading in the system. Secondly, to enable ordinary music lovers to become the new fully legal distribution channel for this music, and of course, reward them for enabling that distribution by awarding them a percentage of the purchase price of the music file they helped upload to the new buyer.
This means that once you buy a music file on this network, it is no longer a sunk-cost, you potentially go on making money from that purchase every time you contribute to another person who buys the same music file. Further, the system will typically reward users more if they have been an early purchaser of a song. So there will be a natural incentive to buy and promote the tracks you believe will sell strongly.