questions
FAQs
the basics
What is daps?
A music streaming app alongside the merch table. Fans build community knowledge: lyrics, credits, and sample histories, right next to the songs. And daps is mission-locked to ensure that an ever-growing share of music’s money reaches the people who made it.
I’m an artist, why daps?
You get paid more per stream, because everyone listening is a subscriber. You can sell merch and tickets right next to your music. And your page looks how you want it to. What daps does for artists.
I’m a fan, why daps?
More of your money gets to the artists you listened to. And everything about a song is in one place: lyrics, credits, samples, tour dates, the shirt. What daps does for fans.
Can I use daps yet?
Not yet. daps launches in early 2027. Drop an email at the bottom of any page and we’ll write when there’s something to try.
What will it cost? Is there a free version?
The music’s catalog, community knowledge, and the store are free for anyone to use; only streaming needs a subscription.
Which artists are on daps?
We’re pre-launch and signing up the first music now.
How do I get involved?
If you make or own music, tell us about it. We’re talking to artists, labels, distributors, and publishers, signed or not, and there’s no minimum. If you’d rather build something, our API is open to anyone.
the product
Where can I use daps?
On the web first. iPhone and Android come after that.
Will there be ads?
No. Not now, and not later.
I’m a fan. How can I participate?
You can edit the catalog, like a wiki. If a lyric, credit, setlist, or sample is missing or wrong, fix it. We check edits before they go live, but truth stays a community asset.
I’m a developer. What can I build?
Whatever you want, on the same public API our own apps use. We’ll publish the spec and the schemas before launch, and we’ll put a link here when we do. About the API, our licenses.
What do you do with my data?
We collect what we need to run the service, and nothing else. We don’t ask your age, your gender, or where you live. No behavioral tracking, no third-party analytics. Even this site counts page views on our own servers. Every privacy setting starts private, and you can export or delete what you put in. Our privacy policy.
Is there AI-generated music on daps?
A real, credited person has to stand behind every track and every video.
Do I have to leave the services I already use?
No. We’ll never ask an artist for an exclusive. If they sell tickets or merch somewhere else, we show it and link straight there.
the money
How much more do artists actually make?
We can’t promise a number before there’s a platform to measure, but we can tell you that we’re making the structural decisions with an aim for the highest possible payouts: everyone listening is a subscriber, the price is the same worldwide, music never gets bundled into a bigger non-music package, and daps grows by increasing users, not taking from artists.
How does daps make money?
We take a portion of subscription revenue to fund operations and a nominal transaction fee on what artists sell. But unlike other services, our cut can only ever go down, so we can’t make more by paying artists less, only by growing users. The deal is designed to keep getting better for creators because their share of the revenue pool can only increase.
How are artists paid when fans stream their music?
We pool subscription revenue into a pot and pay rights holders. But daps does two things differently: it is mission-locked and can only increase the share of revenue paid to rights holders, and it commits to fight for the fairest payment mechanisms the deals will allow (e.g., user-centric payments, not pro rata).
How are artists paid when fans buy something?
The money goes to the artist, minus our fee and the payment processing fee. You see both at checkout. They see both on their statement.
How do I know artist payments won’t go down?
What an artist earns depends on how much people listen and buy, and that moves. What can’t change is our cut: it can go down, never up. What holds that in place.
the company
How do I know you’ll still be around?
You don’t, and anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing. What we can do is build a company that doesn’t depend on us being good, or even on us being here. How that works.
What stops you changing your mind in five years?
The mission is written into our charter as the company’s legal purpose. To remove it you’d need permission from people bound to that purpose who can’t sell that right. Anything done without it is void. The charter gets published when the Delaware filing goes through, and we’ll link it here. The whole structure.
What happens if you get acquired?
Someone can buy the economics. What they can’t buy is the right to change what the company is for. That doesn’t transfer in a sale. It would only pass to someone bound to the same mission.
What is your company structure?
A Delaware public benefit corporation, in formation, with steward ownership. A trust exists purely to protect the mission, and it can block anyone from removing it. Investors and employees still keep the full financial upside of what they build. The detail.
Where are you located?
We’re building in sunny Portland, Oregon.
Why has no one done this already?
Some have tried to tackle pieces of this problem in a fairer way. None have used our mission-locked structure or sought to combine where fans stream and buy onto the same surface so that it is easier to support artists.
Ask us something else.
General questions: info (at) daps.app. Labels, distributors, and artist services: partnerships (at) daps.app. Press: press (at) daps.app.
keep me posted
The future of music is open.
daps is pre-launch and building in the open.