If the saga of the US government’s $10 billion ‘war cloud’ hadn’t already devolved into a soap opera, the latest tit-for-tat exchange between tech giants Microsoft and Amazon proves it.

Amazon filed another formal protest over its lost bid on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract earlier this week — an ever-lucrative 10-year deal won by Microsoft in 2019 but has since existed only in legal limbo.

Amazon‘s lawyers have consistently challenged that choice, citing alleged interference in the procurement process from none other than US president Donald Trump.

They say Trump was fueled by bias spawned by negative reports published by the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

But the contents of Amazon‘s most-recent Hail Mary are confidential. Microsoft exec Frank X. Shaw thinks it’s likely to push for a complete do-over, a move which he lambasted in a fiery blog post titled: “ Bid high, lose, try again. Amazon continues to push for a JEDI re-do. ”

“The only thing that’s certain about Amazon’s new complaint is that it will force American warfighters to wait even longer for the 21st-century technology they need — perpetuating Amazon’s record of putting its own interests ahead of theirs,” wrote Shaw.

“Amazon alone made the choice to bid high, but now wants to find a way to avoid the consequences of its own bad business decisions,” he added.

Last month, the Pentagon’s inspector general concluded that the White House hadn’t compromised the JEDI procurement process, despite having interviewed officials who’d avoided answering certain questions by citing something called “presidential communications privilege.”

Microsoft and Amazon really want those war dollars

Whichever company finally secures the Pentagon’s JEDI contract will provide the Defense Department (DoD) with what is essentially an enterprise cloud computing system — but for the US war machine.

In February, a federal judge granted Amazon’s request to block any work on the JEDI system until the related lawsuit plays out in court.

While a ruling on the case is not yet imminent, the Pentagon’s watchdog recently boiled Microsoft’s win down to a matter of pricing; Amazon asked for too much money.

Microsoft’s Shaw echoed that sentiment by commenting that “no one forced Amazon to bid high in the procurement [process],” before calling upon Amazon to drop the fight and let it provide the US military with the tech it needs.

Hard Fork has reached out to Amazon to learn more about its latest protest and will update this piece should we learn more, but something tells me this petty ordeal is far from over.

New York judge rules US government can intervene in $7M Bitcoin scam

The US government will be able to intervene in a civil case against Jon Barry Thompson, a man charged with running a fraudulent Bitcoin escrow firm which took over $7 million in cryptocurrency from victims.

The government , represented by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission , filed a request for intervention and staying civil proceedings until the conclusion of the parallel criminal case , on November 18.

Judge Loretta A. Preska from the New York Southern District Court ruled in favour of the government intervening in civil proceedings, which reportedly mirror the criminal case against Barry, Finance Feeds reports .

“Upon the consent of all relevant parties, the Government ’s application to intervene in the above entitled matter and to stay the matter in its entirety until the conclusion of the parallel criminal case , United States v. Jon Barry Thompson […] is granted,” Preska said.

A resident of Pennsylvania, Thompson is charged with two counts of commodities fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years behind bars, and two counts of wire fraud , each of which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

He was indicted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) in July.

TikTok partners with blockchain startup — and this could be good news for creators

On August 17, TikTok announced it will partner with Audius, a streaming music platform, to manage its expansive internal audio library.

Audius was not the obvious choice for partnering with the short video giant. A digital music streaming startup founded in 2018, it isn’t one of the major streaming services such as Apple Music or Spotify.

And, even more unusual, Audius is one of the first and only streaming platforms run on blockchain.

Remind me, what is blockchain?

Blockchain is a technology that stores data records and transfers values with no centralized ownership.

Transaction data on these systems are stored as individual “blocks” that sequentially link together when connected by timestamps and unique identifiers to form “chains”.

For music, this means individual songs are assigned unique codes, and clear records are stored each time a song is played. It can also mean more streamlined and transparent payments.

Platforms like Spotify and Apple Music use a “pro-rata” model to pay artists. Under this system, artists get a cut of the platform’s overall monthly revenues generated from ads and subscription fees, as calculated by how many times their music was played.

The pro-rata model has been criticized by independent artists and analysts for maintaining a “superstar economy” in which the most popular artists claim a majority share of monthly revenue.

Facilitated by its blockchain system, Audius uses a “user-centric” model, where artists receive revenues generated by the individual users who stream their music directly.

That is, payments are generated for artists more directly from people streaming their songs.

While the biggest streaming players have refused to abandon pro-rata payments, Deezer — a French music streaming service with around 16 million monthly active users — has taken the first steps towards user-centric payments.

Now, it seems TikTok may be poised to follow.

And how does TikTok work?

With over 800 million monthly active users, TikTok is the world’s largest short video platform and has become a significant force in the global music industry.

Once on TikTok, songs can be used as background for short videos — and can go viral.

Currently, putting independent music on TikTok requires the help of a publisher or companies like CD Baby or TuneCore that charge a fee or take a cut of revenues.

Audius will enable independent artists to upload music directly to TikTok. This would be a boon for musical artists given the centrality of music on TikTok and the platform’s propensity for failing to properly credit artists for their work .

Recent research into blockchain systems in book publishing suggests the technology can lead to improved tracking of intellectual property and increased royalty payments to independent authors. The same may be true for independent musicians on TikTok, but a history of overstated claims and unfulfilled promises warrants measured expectations.

Is this a fairer payment system?

So far, TikTok has made no indication the company will use Audius’ blockchain technology to implement a user-centric revenue model, but the incorporation of royalty payments per video plays is a reasonable expectation.

When artists are paid from a platform like Spotify, they are paid in money. But Audius conducts blockchain transactions using its in-house cryptocurrency called $AUDIO.

Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies stored on public ledgers rather than in banks and used to make transactions facilitated by blockchain systems.

Audius’ co-founder claims most users are unaware or uninterested in the cryptocurrency underpinning the platform — but the price of $AUDIO spiked on coin markets immediately following the announcement.

Because cryptocurrencies operate on a volatile market, if artists were to collect payments in $AUDIO it might be impossible to predict whether their income would amount to fair compensation.

Artists’ income won’t only be tied to how often their music is listened to, but also to market speculation.

So, what does this mean for artists?

Some independent artists may be wary to handle payments through a decentralized digital currency subject to fewer regulations and unpredictable value fluctuations — not to mention the environmental costs associated with mining and maintaining cryptocurrency.

And a user-centric model is not without flaws . For the model to be truly tested requires full cooperation from record labels, music publishers, and digital platforms.

Anything less would create fundamentally unequal conditions for artists using different services.

Even TikTok isn’t putting all its eggs in the blockchain basket. In June 2020 TikTok established partnerships with major labels and Indie consortia for music distribution, and in July 2021 TikTok announced a new partnership with Spotify to offer premium services exclusive to European artists.

But, after years of sensational claims and unfulfilled promises that blockchain will transform the future of the music industry, TikTok has taken a tangible step towards uncovering what that future might actually look like for everyday artists.

This article by D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye , Assistant researcher, Queensland University of Technology is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .