[DIP] Decentralized radio network

Devcon Improvement Proposals (DIPs)
1

Title: Local Decentralized Radio

Authors: Alaska - @akprettyok @alaskaisprettyokay
Resources Required: LAN for reliable internal broadcast

:brain: What do you suggest?

A decentralized radio station, allowing any user to play dj upload music, and everyone to hear it locally. Also will allow users to tune in to things happening around on site in a lightweight way while they are working.

:bullseye: Motivation & Rationale

  • This will allow the music of ethereum and anyones personal thoughts to be local broadcast. Adds a fun and interactive way to anyone on site to participate in the narrative and dialogue of Devcon.
  • It will allow users to permisionlessly participate, and the experiment will operate on a decentralized protocol.

:hammer_and_wrench: Implementation

  • Yes, I ran this experiment at Dweb with great success.
  • It has been built and deployed already, so I simply need to connect with the devcon team / local infra providers, there will be a simple site to use, all very straight forward.

:gear: Operational Requirements & Ownership

  • I will need access to the local network if possible - otherwise to deploy a mesh network.
  • I will be responsible with a small team.
  • Anyone who is wanting to make music or share knowledge / ideas can use the local network to communicate in this way.

:link: Links & Additional Information

More coming soon…. social links from dweb

4 Likes
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very interesting idea!

what kind of access do you need here?

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In an ideal world, if there is a singular network for the space a direct connection to the network will greatly improve performance -

in the case of dweb, we just connected to freifunk network so anyone anywhere could access the radio internally without needing internet - can greatly improve the experience.

this is a optimistic ask though.. i’m sure the IT at the conference hall will be inaccessible in this way but you cant blame me for asking!

A direct connection to the network would be great though, if possible. (ethernet, not wifi)

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yeah - not routing this over the internet would also be good for our uplink.

Would just removing client-isolation as it was done at dweb be enough for you?

Do you need (yolo)colo to host your servers?

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Hi @alaskaisprettyokay - as a former college radio host/producer myself, I was truly excited to read this DIP!

I do have a question: by saying that “any user can upload music", does the platform you’ve built allows uploading tracks registered under a CC0 or CC BY license only?

If not, this will likely require acquiring a music license in India (I did a quick research and it seems the ‘INTR’ tariff’ is what it fits best in this case) and maybe limit the access to the conference venue and surroundings. This is definitely far from permisionless, but when it comes to music rights, I think it’s safer playing by the rules (and artists rightfully deserve to be paid!).

However, if the radio network is mostly broadcasting ‘voice notes’ and self-produced audio, I think a license won’t be necessary - worth checking, or maybe you can clarify that in the proposal. I definitely don’t want to derail your idea (because I think it’s great!), just trying to avoid potential risks. Thank!

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Yeah, of course. These are all the complicated things to deal with. That’s why a local broadcast is pretty nice. It’s just internal. We’re not trying to reproduce it and make any profit off of it. That being said, I do have a lot of kind of routes towards donating to artists that are contributing. The dream scenario would be artists and folks can kind of contribute their own music. And then radio shows and if they’re DJing it’s you know just gonna be in a local network.

I do have catalogs of music that I have access to personally and folks can make playlists for that. So there’s some solutions as far as that goes. Also, the platform I have uses music. routed through YouTube and SoundCloud, which actually takes care of the licensing. So it’s a deeper conversation we can have to just make sure it’s gonna be fine, but it’s something I’ve thought about. It can get complicated for sure, so I’m glad you pointed it out.

Suffice to say, I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ll do some research in India and do a little bit of investigation to make sure. But for just local broadcasts, it should be okay.

Happy to chat more!

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Thanks for your answer! Yeah I figured that’s the kind of challenge you’ve faced before, so I appreciate your explanation and willingness to check further.

Down the line, if there’s anything I can do to help (mostly on programming, connecting with artists, or recording a few sweepers) - let me know :smiley: