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🧱 What Are MIDDS?

In Allfeat, everything revolves around metadata — but not just any metadata.

To make it usable, trustworthy, and interoperable, we’ve created a set of structured objects called MIDDS:
Music Industry Decentralized Data Structures

Think of MIDDS as the building blocks of the Allfeat metadata layer.
They define what kind of data can be stored, how it’s structured, and how it connects to the rest of the network.

🎯 Why Create MIDDS?

Music metadata is everywhere — in streaming platforms, PROs, labels, spreadsheets, backends — but it’s often:

  • Incomplete
  • Incompatible
  • Opaque
  • Privately stored
  • Lost in closed systems

MIDDS solve this by offering:

✅ Clear structures: Each MIDDS follows a strict format, easy to index, query, and validate
✅ Public consistency: Once validated, a MIDDS is the same for everyone, everywhere
✅ Durability: It lives forever in a tamper-proof network
✅ Transparency: Anyone can read, reference, and build upon it

🎵 The 4 MIDDS Types (for now)

These are the core units that represent different layers of the music ecosystem:

1. Party Identifier

Represents any person or entity in the music industry with a recognized public identifier, such as IPI (Interested Party Information) or ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier).
This can include performers, authors, publishers, labels, or organizations.
The type (person vs company) is specified in the MIDDS itself.

2. Song

The underlying musical work — such as a composition or lyrics.
Structured using fields like ISWC and title, it's the blueprint behind all recordings.

3. Track

A recorded performance of a song — often linked to an ISRC code.
Includes references to its performers (Party Identifiers), the related Song, and release information.

4. Release

A packaged musical product, like a single, album, or compilation.
Groups multiple Tracks under a title and release date.

Each MIDDS only includes public-level metadata: names, codes, dates, titles, and references.
There is no ownership or private contractual data stored on-chain.

🆔 Dual Identity: Network vs. Real World

Every MIDDS has two key identifiers:

Identifier Type Description
🧬 Allfeat ID Unique hash-like ID assigned when the MIDDS is created on-chain
🌍 Real World ID (RW-ID) Pre-existing industry-standard ID embedded in the data (e.g. ISNI, ISWC, ISRC)

This separation is fundamental:

  • The Allfeat ID ensures decentralized traceability inside the network
  • The RW-ID allows verification and cross-referencing with Web2 systems (e.g., rights societies, catalogs, DSPs)

By anchoring real-world identifiers in MIDDS, Allfeat becomes a bridge between the existing metadata ecosystem and a new public, decentralized standard.

⚙️ Optimized for a Network Context

Traditional metadata lives in files, documents, or private APIs.
But in a decentralized, shared network, we need data that is:

  • 🪶 Lightweight: Designed to minimize blockchain storage costs
  • 🔗 Composable: MIDDS can reference each other (e.g., a Track links to its Song and Party Identifiers)
  • 🔍 Verifiable: Every change, creation, or certification is recorded and auditable
  • 🧩 Modular: Metadata is broken into logical, reusable units

This design allows Allfeat to scale into a global, interoperable metadata layer — maintained by the music industry, for the music industry.

💰 Collateral and Data Weight

Submitting a MIDDS to the Allfeat blockchain requires collateral staking in AFT tokens.

But this cost isn’t fixed — it’s proportional to the data size:

📦 Data Size (Bytes) 🔐 Required Collateral (AFT)
Small (e.g., minimal metadata) Low collateral
Large (e.g., full aliases, long titles, many references) Higher collateral

This dynamic system ensures:

  • 🛡️ Security: Protects the chain from spam or oversized data (anti-DoS mechanism)
  • ⚖️ Fairness: Heavy users contribute more to storage usage
  • 🌱 Sustainability: Keeps on-chain metadata lightweight and efficient

💡 The more metadata you anchor on-chain, the more you commit to its importance — via economic collateral.

This approach aligns incentives: serious contributors are rewarded, while excessive or frivolous data becomes economically unviable.

📌 Summary

  • MIDDS are structured objects to represent public music metadata on Allfeat
  • They’re built for clarity, consistency, and verification
  • Current types include: Party Identifier, Song, Track, Release
  • Every MIDDS includes both a network-level ID and a real-world ID
  • Their structure is optimized for a decentralized, scalable, and transparent system

They are the language of the Allfeat metadata protocol — the raw material for trust, coordination, and innovation across music data.