Most artists these days are utilizing crypto to connect directly with fans and bolster their earnings. Pop music duo, The Chainsmokers release non-fungible tokens to offer a cut of music royalties. The 5,000 NFTs gave fans a share of the streaming revenue from the new album. They gave around a 1% cut of the streaming royalties from their new album and priority access to free merchandise and concert tickets.
The Chainsmokers aren’t the first to experiment with NFTs, crypto, or blockchain. Moreover, they are unlikely to be the last. Royal is a startup looking to give fans access and investment opportunities related to the musicians they love and partner with The Chainsmokers to provide their fans a stake in the success.
Modern Technology Use by Artists: Is It a New Norm?
You might have heard the term NFTs, and some top artists, from Snoop Dogg to The Weeknd, are making waves in the NFT world. So what are they, and how are NFTs boosting the music industry? A non-fungible token is a digital collectible sold and bought using cryptocurrency.
Non-fungible tokes can range from sound recording and art to tickets and more. NFT sales hit around 25 billion in 2021; the growth is not showing signs of slowing down. Prices for cryptocurrency assets and NFTs represent digital items like video, images, or land in digital space.
EDM artists were premature leaders in the NFT world. In the year 2021, 3LAU auctioned 33 NFT collectible versions of his album Ultraviolet, which was sold for $11.7 million, and marked the first album to be tokenized. In addition, artists like Shawn Mendes, Grimes, and The Weeknd have launched their own crypto assets or NFTs.
Snoop Dogg most recently announced that Death Row Records would be an NFT label. With the rise of NFTs, music artists say, “technology has been a big part of the music business and has dictated how we consume and make music. This modern technology is the future of the music industry.
Crypto Boom in Music Industry: Find Everything Here
Crypto enthusiasts envision a future where artists are paid fairly; moreover, the ticketing market is no longer ravaged by scalpers, and digital memorabilia soar in value. In a vast labyrinthine ecosystem of publishers, distributors, royalty collectors, and labels, the idea of artists getting paid quickly might sound like a revolutionary change.
What if the music industry’s thousands of artists who have been cash-strapped can’t tour due to the pandemic spread and didn’t have to wait to get royalties but could receive streaming money quickly? What if there is “merch royalty” that artists get a cut every time a piece of art or a branded hoodie is resold or a system to ensure accurate paychecks for musicians? All this is possible now with crypto.
Modern technology like bitcoin and blockchain is applied to the multibillion-dollar global business of selling albums. Crypto advocates want to contrive a financial system for music that supports real-time revenue streams and hands more power to the individual artist. Unfortunately, the conversations can easily deter the music fan: Crypto is well, articles and cryptic on the subject cultivate to be filled with in-the-know lengthy and jargon digressions.
Crypto Ensures Easier, Faster, and Accurate Payments for Songs
The head and founder of a music distribution company and record label Empire, Ghazi Shami, who has worked with everyone from Migos to Snoop Dogg, is excited by crypto’s ability to circumvent banking headaches. Peer-to-peer thing, crypto is faster and more fluid.
Upon realizing the advantages, Shami thinks about what would happen if the process is applied to receiving payments from DSPs (digital streaming platforms) like Apple, Amazon, YouTube, and Spotify.
He said, “Crypto helps you to create a much clearer sequence of getting paid.” Stablecoins are a type of crypto coin that is easily traded against a stable currency, such as the euro, dollar, etc., which is traded globally. For example, there is no issue with conversion rates when the euro-using Amazon France yields an American rights holder.
Paying royalties out from labels to artists is a laborious process involving different bill-pay systems, checking & rechecking all the paperwork, and a horde of vendors & software platforms.
Artists can initiate the royalty from a system; they need to draft the money from an individual’s bank against the royalty, and then they are paid. Shami states it might take 3 to 5 business days. But with crypto, it becomes easier, as artists can deal in direct payments on the blockchain, making it easier to send the royalties in seconds.
Crypto appeals to the reduction of systems at risk for misbehavior and fraud. As a label, the crypto-based system enables you to do business with all other labels, including artists. It makes it easier for everyone to pay each other easily and speedily. It makes it possible for us to interact with one another in an easier fashion; it makes it possible for you to pay for artists, track the payments, and more.
This further does not require the music industry to agree on one blockchain or currency, as long as there is an inter ledger where all the blockchains can be interconnected and can speak and report to one another, Shara Senderoofm, an entrepreneur who held a number of executive roles, across music, technology, and multimedia explained.
Letting Artists Peek Under the Hood
Contracts and other crucial data pertaining to an artist’s career can be stored on the blockchain. Modern creators expect more from teams responsible for promoting and handling their music and listeners as well. Hence they need a system that helps them to grab the desired results. Transparency has become a hot button as more artists have opted for going indie out of distrust of music brands.
Modern-day creators expect a full sense of transparency. There has to be a sense of transparency, immutable and irrefutable, so no central organization or agency can manipulate the information.
Many indie players are starting to play with blockchain and crypto-based apps. If they can get success with it and unlock benefits for creators, major players may want to replicate that as well as lean in for the sake of being competitive, but it’s probably in the upcoming years’ conversation.
Blockchain can help artists understand how and where their money comes in. Imagine a neatly organized portal that updates all of the artist’s revenue streams, including licensing, music streaming royalties, merch, performance royalties, touring, and more.
That does not currently exist, thanks to the complications within the multi-ownership of music works. Blockchain adoption in the music industry is still a long way as many artists are unaware of its use, but few have started using it, which is a good start.
Allowing Fans to Invest in Artists Directly
If a fan buys art through an NFT, they know it is authentic as they can see where it comes from and how many owners it has so far. With NFTs and crypto, the music industry could create a kind of merch royalty.
Because of rules and smart contracts that can be coded into crypto assets and NFT, the original creator of whatever asset or art is stored on it can get paid a piece of the value that was exchanged, which provides great benefits for creators.
Give Modern Touch to Your Music Streaming Business to Match the Trend!
Looking at the growing demand of the audience and changing market trends, it’s a wise choice to opt for modern technology. Advanced technologies like blockchain, cryptocurrency, and more can help you give a modern touch to your music streaming business. You can use this technology to develop an app like Spotify or any other. These apps will help you manage everything in a systematic manner and help you generate greater revenue in a short time.