Music Ally reported on the launch of decentralised streaming service Audius in September, and wondered whether its “censorship-resistant” features (or as one report put it, ‘anti-takedown) might cause problems if people started uploading copyrighted music.
A few weeks on, and other journalists are asking the same question. The Verge goes in strong, describing Audius as “a copyright nightmare” and claiming that there is already “pirated material”. It goes on to explore what happens when tracks by Ed Sheeran, Spinnin’ Records and Kanye West are uploaded to Audius by users, as they have been.
“The company confirmed to The Verge that there is no content ID system in place to catch potential infringement. Though individual uploaders can be held liable for infringement, there’s no way for Audius to remove infringing material, and there is also no way to file an infringement claim on the website,” it reported, quoting Audius as saying “a formal process is in the works”.
Meanwhile, actual royalty payouts are described by Audius’ CEO as “TBD as sometime next year”. Those payments, as we reported, will be using Audius’ own tokens.
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