Former Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum recently announced the creation of Artbit — a revolutionary distributed-ledger platform that allows both artists and fans to share and monetize artistic talent from anywhere across the globe. He spoke with Forbes.com about the venture; an excerpt from the interview is available below.

Q: Can you give me an example of how this would play out for Artbit users?

Sorum: "If there’s a busker on the street and he’s playing a guitar, and all those people around are filming, but they’re doing it on Artbit, they’re gonna launch all their content on Artbit, and they’re gonna be automatically linked to that performer. And the way that will work will be, they’ll see him, his information will come up on hashgraph, and then everyone — depending on who puts branding, filters, like a Snapchat-type filter, but you can augment it with augmented reality — you’ll be paid that way. So people will earn for the amount of content they put up. Coins will automatically enter your wallet. Why? Because you’ve already signed the smart contract, telling everybody on the hashgraph ledger what you’re doing. I know it sounds complicated, but it’s not as complicated as it sounds."

Q: So fans get rewarded for interacting with artists, and artists get rewarded for engaging those fans?

Sorum: "That’s right. I’ve always thought, artists are the ones that get the accolades, but what about the fans? For me, I always say thank you to the fans. If it wasn’t for the fans, I wouldn’t have a career, I wouldn’t have a house, I wouldn’t have a car, none of it. So why shouldn’t they have an opportunity to come and be part of the process? We’re gonna have a layer to Artbit where you can actually invest in that artist. You can be a part of that company, so to speak. You’re not gonna be a partner, because the beauty about crypto is that you aren’t an equity owner. You’re only a coin owner. It’s a different thing, you understand? You don’t say, 'I own a piece of him.' You don’t own a piece. You don’t own anything. No one owns anybody. But you have a coin piece of that artist. So your coin is your currency that is gonna retain part of that.

There’s already a solution with this kind of stuff to solve every middleman aspect of the music business. For instance, publishing. You know how publishing works, right? Someone writes the song, there’s five songwriters. At some point down the line, we’ll have a library of music. I’m not saying when that’s gonna be. It’ll be probably an update on the app. Update now and you’ll get the new thing. So we’re gonna have to do layers of updates."

Read the complete articicle here.

Founded by Sorum, Pablo Martins, Renan Monjon, Saulo Monjon and Jean-Philippe Innocent, Artbit was created on the premise that the unsigned, unrepresented artists of today — musicians, street artists, dancers, magicians, and every street performer in between — are enhancing their communities and broadcasting their soul to the world with little or no monetary return. Artbit addresses this problem by providing exposure and capital to independent artists, while protecting their intellectual property and equipping them with the tools they need to manage the business side of their craft.

"Before I had any recognition as a musician, I was roaming back alleys in Hollywood, playing any gig I could get, sleeping on couches and surviving off Top Ramen," says Sorum. "Today, getting recognition is easier, but getting paid is even harder. With Artbit, we're giving power back to the fans to tell the world who deserves attention, and we're giving a platform to artists to turn their dreams into a paying reality."

By creating "virtual stages" using renowned artist hubs around the world, Artbit will allow up-and-coming creators to fund their passions through a crypto-economy powered by hashgraph.

"We believe in a more equitable, trusted, and secure online world," said Mance Harmon, CEO of Hedera hashgraph, the distributed-ledger platform upon which Artbit will be built. "We believe in a multiverse where you can carve out your own piece of cyberspace, be confident when interacting with others, control how you collaborate, and decide who benefits from your work and how. We are pleased to be working with Artbit to bring that vision to the artist community, a community that thrives and grows on collaboration and support of one another."

Artbit users will be able to produce live shows and performances through the platform, linking artists' performance locations to any of Artbit's virtual stages. Fans from around the world can then watch these live performances, conducting interactions (liking, sharing, and attaching AR filters) while generating micro-income for both the artist and curatorial public. Through the use of augmented reality and gamification, both fans and performers will have the opportunity to be part of the show.