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A short Q&A about what Dubplay is, why artists release here, why fans collect here, how streaming and lossless Vault playback work, and what makes editions different from a download or a stream.
Dubplay is a music platform where artists release their work as limited, collectible editions called dubplates. Fans stream releases in the web app and unlock lossless playback of the originals through the companion Vault app on phone or hi-fi hardware. Dubplates can also include Deep Cuts — collectible bonus content tied to your copy. Every dubplate is yours to keep, and yours to resell.
In practice, no. A streaming subscription splits your monthly fee across every artist you barely listen to — the people you actually love get a tiny fraction of it. On Dubplay you only pay when you decide to own a release. After that you can listen to it as much as you want, forever, with no recurring fee. If you stream ten albums on repeat all year, the math works strongly in your favour.
Yes. Browsing Discovery, searching by artist, track, label or genre, and previewing releases is free — no subscription, no account required. Without an account each track plays as a 30-second preview that gently fades out and crossfades into the next track, with a friendly nudge to create an account for full playback. Discovery is for everyone; ownership is opt-in.
Streaming services rent you access to a catalogue and slice your subscription across the whole industry. Dubplay sells you real copies of releases that live in your collection forever. You stream what you own, you can play it losslessly through the Vault, and you can sell or transfer it like any other collectible.
Each dubplate is a numbered, limited copy with verifiable provenance, and it can carry Deep Cuts that don’t exist anywhere else. Artists choose how many copies exist. Fans get a real asset — not a download you might lose, and not a license that can be revoked.
You set the price, the supply, and the format. You upload your WAV masters directly. You keep ownership of your catalogue through a permanent Soundmark release record, and you collect a defined royalty on every secondary sale — forever.
You upload lossless WAVs, cover art, and optional gatefold or back cover. The platform encodes a high-quality streaming version, and packages your masters into an encrypted lossless archive. Both go on public, content-addressed storage (IPFS via Filebase) — the files stay reachable, the keys stay yours.
Deep Cuts are bonus content tied to a dubplate: alternate takes, videos, liner notes, hidden surprises. Dubplates can also opt into physical pressings (vinyl, etc.) once a release hits its threshold. Provenance of the physical item is tied to the collected dubplate.
Artists keep the majority of the primary sale, and the master holder earns a royalty on every secondary sale — forever. Taxes are removed first, then Dubplay takes a staged primary-sale platform fee that starts at 20% and can step down toward 10% as a release sells more editions. The remaining pool goes to the master owner, contributors, and any private recoupment accounting configured for the release. That pool is the real deal: Dubplay does not hide payment-processing, card, storage, or platform operating fees behind the scenes and deduct them again from the artist side. Royalties are recorded alongside ownership, so fans can verify them.
Because you actually own the music. Your editions live in your collection, you can play them through the Vault in lossless quality, and they hold collectible value — many releases are strictly limited. If you stop using Dubplay, you keep what you bought.
Yes. Editions are designed to be transferable. When secondary trading opens, the original artist still earns a royalty on every resale, so supporting an artist on day one keeps paying off as the collection appreciates.
A numbered Soundmark edition, streaming access in the web app, lossless playback through the Vault, any Deep Cuts attached to your edition, and — if a physical campaign is active — an opt-in for the pressed object with a printed delivery ID linked to your edition.
The web app streams a high-quality encoded version of each track. Audio is delivered in encrypted chunks straight from the public IPFS gateway, decrypted in your browser by a Service Worker, and played back through a normal <audio> element. Nothing is proxied through our servers — it is fast, cheap, and content-addressed.
Anyone can play a 30-second preview of any track in Discovery. Previews fade out gently and crossfade into the next track so browsing feels musical, not abrupt. A small prompt invites you to create a free account whenever you want to hear a full track.
With an account you can stream full tracks for free. Releases you already own play without limits. For releases you don’t own yet, after the configured number of completed listens in the current rolling window we’ll gently surface a message along the lines of “hey, you seem to really like this track — consider buying it.” Only full-song listens count toward the cap; sampling the first 30 seconds is always free. It’s a nudge, not a paywall: discovery stays generous, and ownership stays meaningful.
Because unlimited free streams of the same track turn the platform back into a streaming service — which is exactly what we’re trying not to be. The soft cap on repeats keeps casual discovery free for everyone while making sure the artists you love actually get paid when a track becomes part of your life.
The Vault is the companion app for lossless playback of editions you own. It verifies your Soundmark edition, downloads the encrypted release archive (your WAVs), and decrypts on-device. The Vault is built for hi-fi: chunked AES-256-GCM decryption, drag-to-seek with a smooth playhead, and bit-perfect output to your DAC.
Because the Vault plays the original master files — not a re-encoded streaming version. Album sides that were mixed to flow seamlessly (live records, DJ mixes, concept albums) play the way the artist intended: zero silence between tracks, sample- accurate transitions, no codec padding. Nothing else in your listening chain matches the master.
No. The Vault runs on phone and tablet. For audiophile setups it is being prepared for dedicated hardware (e.g. Cambridge Audio integrations) so the master can travel from your collection to your speakers without a re-encode along the way.
Artists set their own terms. Fans get something real. Royalties are transparent and recorded on the same chain that records ownership. Files live on public, content-addressed storage so nothing disappears if the platform pauses. Fans hold their own keys.
On a subscription service, your monthly fee is pooled and split across every track played on the platform that month. The artist you listen to most gets a sliver. On Dubplay, the money you spend on a release is settled release by release: tax first, Dubplay’s staged platform fee next, and the rest to the artist, label/master owner, contributors, and recoupment participants where configured. Sales tax/VAT is collected separately where required and is not part of anyone’s split. Payment processing and other platform-side fees are paid by Dubplay from its own side, not quietly subtracted from the release pool. It pays the rights holders again on every secondary sale. There is no middle pool diluting the payout.
Dubplay takes a staged percentage of primary sales: the fee starts at 20% and can step down toward 10% when a release performs well and sells more editions. The current platform-fee schedule is a live platform policy: if it changes, the change applies to future sales after the change, including future sales of releases that were already published. Already settled sales are not recalculated. We also take a small percentage of secondary sales. That covers running Discovery, the streaming infrastructure, encryption and key management, the Vault apps, and ongoing development, including payment-stack costs that other platforms may pass through as extra deductions. We do not sell a subscription, we do not run ads, and we do not monetise listening data. The platform earns when fans actually choose to own something.
Dubplay absorbs the transaction-side payment processing costs for the sale itself, but Stripe Connect payout fees are paid by the receiver: the artist, contributor, seller, or other payable party taking money out of Dubplay Wallet. That is why we use payout thresholds: waiting until a balance is large enough helps avoid small payouts being eaten by repeated Stripe fees. Receivers can still request an early payout when they want one, with the fee made visible before the payout is sent. Stripe, blockchain, banking, tax, and Dubplay platform fees can change over time; the current public framework is described in our Terms of Service draft.
Encrypted streams and lossless archives are stored on IPFS, which addresses files by their content hash. That means anyone can host a copy and the address still resolves — the music is not locked behind one company’s servers. Combined with self-custody keys, your collection is robust to any one party going away.
Your Soundmark is your permanent music identity, auto-created on signup. It is the key to your collection — purchases, edition ownership, lossless unlocks, and (later) secondary sales all move through it. You can reveal and back up the recovery phrase at any time from your account page.
Your editions stay in your Soundmark. Your encrypted archives stay on IPFS. Your Soundmark mnemonic still unwraps your keys. The collection is yours independent of the platform.
Blockchains first became known through digital money, but the more useful idea here is digital ownership. Dubplay uses Flow blockchain to anchor each Soundmark copy to a permanent ownership record. In simple terms, your edition is represented by an NFT on Flow. That matters because ownership can be verified independently of our app: who owns a copy, which release it belongs to, and whether it has been transferred or resold. That extra layer of trust is what makes Soundmark editions collectible, transferable, and able to carry ongoing artist royalties.
This matters, and we try to be transparent about it. Flow uses a proof-of-stake design with specialized node roles, so it uses far less energy than older blockchains that rely on heavy competitive computation. That does not mean zero impact, but it is a more efficient and more sustainable base for a music platform like Dubplay. In short: there is still an environmental footprint, but it is substantially lower than the compute-heavy blockchain model many people associate with NFTs.