Music is a complex business; the industry has a fair share of controversies, from monopolies to the narrow earning potential of up-and-coming artists. While Web2 and Web3 brought positive changes, the music streaming industry still has a long way to go.
Due to this, many projects are utilizing this technology to offer new solutions for the age-old market. Want to know more? Read the blog in-depth to understand how blockchain technology changed the music industry.
Streaming platforms like Spotify and other intermediaries comprise around 80% of the revenues. It’s, however, a technology that could bring fundamental changes: Blockchain. This modern technology solves many of the existing issues in the music industry. In addition, the industry has changed drastically because of social media and internet development.
Artists have mediums to share their streaming content, and fans have new ways to engage with and support musicians they love. However, like most things within the Web2 and Web3 sphere, a few own the assets in the industry, and corporations profit more than artists and users.
Why is Blockchain a Good Technology for Music Distribution?
Since Napster’s launch in 1999, music-sharing platforms in the music industry have been in near-constant turmoil, its timeline marked by dipping revenues, piracy problems, lack of transparency, and feuds over the fair distribution of dividends. With many conflicts of interest, a business model or service can only satisfy some parties’ needs.
After suffering from a complicated and thorny relationship with the tech sector, the music industry finds a chance to head in a positive direction with blockchain technology that powers the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. This modern technology has drawn the attention of professionals and investors and is showing promising signs of the music industry changing in a way that might satisfy everyone’s needs.
Present State Music Industry
Before going through the details of what Blockchain could bring, let’s look at the challenges of the music industry that blockchain technology could help to solve. Over the past years, the music industry has constantly changed and experienced disruptions.
For decades record labels, including Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Sony BMG, have controlled and dominated the music industry, composing the music rights and reaping more profits.
Since 2000, music streaming platforms have emerged as market leaders, triggered by the Internet’s arrival. Music streaming platforms like Spotify, YouTube, and more have helped to change the story to a few extents and transformed the way music is experienced by making it widely accessible to users.
Music Industry Shortcomings
Though the streaming platform brought disruptions while transforming the stakeholder landscape, the geriatric structures that formed the industry chain have mostly stayed the same. This means several significant areas for improvement still exist, including the high administrative fees, operational costs, and minimal artist payouts due to middlemen.
The need for more transparency, especially regarding copyrights and metadata. Due to the absence of trust, lengthy and inefficient payment processes are needed, and global collaborations are needed.
Middlemen and Centralized Services
The music industry is overloaded with many middlemen, such as record labels, streaming services, and radio companies. That means that artists receive a small proportion of royalties; however, it’s hard to determine how much each artist will receive.
Another shortcoming is that most centralized streaming services act like search engines. These are often unsafe, inaccurate, and vulnerable to malicious agents. With a centralized search engine, algorithm bias favors and provides more exposure to tracks and artists.
Copyright Rights and Artist Pay-outs Issue
There needs to be higher transparency, especially regarding copyrights and metadata. The volume of data has increased manifold; there is no global database for neighboring and copyrights.
A complex structure has developed to manage a chaotic amount of different rights, whereby the music industry has turned into a complicated array of publishing and record agreements and other licenses.
Finding who determined rights owners to obtain a license could be difficult or impossible. Artists need to learn how the royalty payments are calculated. Most artists receive minimal payouts as the music business is booming and making billions of dollars. In 2020, musicians gained around 12% of the $50 billion generated in the music streaming industry. However, it takes years to reach the artists’ bank accounts.
Blockchain Technology to Disrupt Music Industry & Proves a Solution
Blockchain technology is based on the simple concept of a fully decentralized database and improved security; it holds potential for the music industry to overcome many challenges artists and fans face. Smart contracts have revolutionized and fundamentally changed the industry by removing third-party middlemen from music sales and streaming platforms.
Blockchain has given creators power and control from a creative and economic perspective. By bypassing the long list of intermediaries, Blockchain can ease the copyright process, allowing artists to verify songs’ copyright and ensuring streamlining of royal payments.
This can solve the issues of adequate compensation from right holders and artists, ensuring more equitable and efficient royalty distribution and revenue sharing. This also secures music rights and intellectual property management. Let’s explore more to know how Blockchain is changing the music industry.
Bringing Fair Payment to Musicians
Hedera Hashgraph powered platform Tune.FM claims to provide musicians 90% of streaming revenue, ten times more than stream earnings on mainstream services. Artists can easily earn digital tokens when their music is streamed on a streaming platform like Spotify.
Co-founder of Tune.FM Andrew Antar announced that many independent musicians suffered after COVID-19. He said, “With apps similar to Spotify not paying them fairly, lots of artists struggled to get by. We’re the antidote for the millions of creatives not paid enough by the streaming services.”
Allowing Fans to Co-own Songs
Backed music marketplace Royal, Andreessen Horowitz enables fans to share ownership of songs from their favorite artist through NFTs. After dropping non-fungible tokens for prominent rapper Nas, the platform released tokens for songwriter Diplo and American DJ.
3lau or Justin Blau, Royal co-founder, announced the platform aims to empower artists to have control over their work. They fuel their careers; Blau believes that by co-owning music, fans or listeners establish a good connection and help them be independent regarding creativity.
Powering Music Collaboration Through NFTs
Squad of Knights enables NFT owners to form six-person squads, assigning every person their roles in the music composition or production process. Just like working with traditional music labels, the platform enables community members to own the music they produce.
Ramon Ibanga, founder and award-winning record producer, also known as Illmind, says that “searching for people to work with is tough, but finding the right people to work is even more challenging. He also noted that the project aims to bring together music artists and managers within the metaverse and the real world.
Providing Decentralized Audio to the Metaverse
A Solana-based streaming platform, Audius provides an array of decentralized audio files to the Metaverse. This platform works with metaverses such as Portals to provide music to their users. Audius’ decentralized nature enables anyone to pull content from the streaming platform and use it when building their own projects.
Audios CEO and co-founder said that the platform is a decentralized content repository with defined rights so third-party developers can pull from the platform’s catalog without any significant issues.
Startups and Musicians Embracing Blockchain Technology
A globally decentralized blockchain-based ledger can solve payments, ownership, and transparency issues. It also makes it easier for creators to upload music and associated metadata ledger. Consumers and companies can play and search for the music of their choice, whereas smart contracts ensure that the owners of the content will be paid automatically for its usage.
The database stores .bc or “dot-blockchain” records, which Rogers defines as “a codec that can’t be separated from its rights. A music startup, PeerTracks, is also getting ready to launch its platform. It will be betting big on Blockchain, an artist equity trading system that makes it easier to manage revenue and royalties, making it convenient for artists who cannot afford to pay someone else to do it. The system leverages the MUSE blockchain. MUSE is a ledger engineered for the music industry.
Is Blockchain the Music Industry’s Silver Bullet?
Blockchain might not be the answer to all problems the music industry faces, but it levels the playing field to some degree. Songwriters, musicians, artists, and performers -in short, the real owners of the industry -will be the benefactors, for they can own their creations and get their due to their efforts.
It will not be perfect for those who profit from the transparency lack in the music industry that chooses to monopolize rather than share. Clashes will likely ensue if the idea gains real momentum and traction. As Rogers explains, the money being left on the table is restricting the money being made under the table, which means that overall, a transparent system that can generate more revenue and create opportunities.
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