Can Blockchain Tech Transform the Music Sector In The Year 2020

Emerging trends and content offerings have, over the last decade, continued to drive growth and distribution in the music industry. Modernization in the music business and distribution methods have allowed numerous unsigned artists to produce recordings and distribute their music and art across the globe, mainly via the internet. 

The changes being witnessed in music streaming and new licensing structures have highlighted the need for developments to restructure licensing processes and how musicians can collect royalties and track their work. 

The time is now right for blockchain tech to eradicate the inadequacies and security issues currently plaguing the music industry. This guide will look at how blockchain could supply the capacity to revolutionize the music industry in 2020. 

The Issues of Payment and Transparency

While the new-flanged production and distribution of digital files and streaming services have served to evolve the music business, it has also brought about different concerns, many of which are still unresolved.

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The dramatic rise in size and popularity of streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora contradicts how little music artists receive as payment. In fact, the disparity between the revenue generated by streaming businesses and the amount that artists are compensated currently presents a significant problem. 

Spotify recently settled a $1.6 billion lawsuit in which the company was accused of using songs without fairly compensating artists.

Furthermore, there is usually a substantial and agonizing delay between streaming plays and payment disbursement to artists, with some having to wait weeks or even months to collect royalty payments.

Blockchain tech now makes it possible to get rid of many of the intermediaries, allowing the artist to distribute their music independently without losing money and, at the same time, protecting their work of art.

One of the companies operating in this sector is K-Tune, a platform that allows musicians and producers to upload their works, sell them, or find other musicians to finish their song. To sell and buy, the platform uses the KTT token based on blockchain.

Creating transparency in disbursements is one of the most prominent applications of the blockchain. The structures that oversee blockchain payment structures are now being applied to generate an impartial and transparent payment structure for the music business. 

A prime example is Bitsong, building a decentralized music streaming platform in which artists will be paid directly from listeners of their songs. Artists using this platform are compensated for any streaming plays by listeners and can even attach ads to their work to gain more income.

Meanwhile, the Musicoin platform lets independent artists access an international audience and collect remuneration for any streamed or downloaded content directly via cryptocurrency. 

Another promising example of the application of blockchain tech to facilitate transparent payment is Revelator. This music platform forms a wallet solution for artists to be paid in crypto whenever a song is played on any radio station. What’s more, royalty payments are made via smart contracts to ensure accurate accounts based on the sum of plays.

Music sharing and streaming platforms aren’t the only ones embracing blockchain tech. Artists like Gramatik are taking this to a whole new level by creating their own crypto that fans can buy from his website to generate income to support his music. 

This provides a way for artists to release their own music and choose, rather than handle the music industry bureaucracy and go-betweens.

Blockchain Tech Can Save the Ticketing Industry

There is a silver lining on the horizon for artists (and fans) regarding the problems plaguing the live concert ticketing industry. 

By permitting digital data to be distributed but not copied, the blockchain has introduced a new internet type. Initially invented for BTC, developers have found new and exciting possible use cases for the tech across numerous business sectors.

For instance, Yellowheart, a company based in New York, is structuring a new-fangled ticket-selling protocol connected by blockchain tech and specially designed to control end-to-end ticketing, resolving problem artists ticketing companies have struggled with for decades. The platform also allows concert goes and music fans to buy the best tickets at face value.

In a recent interview with Billboard magazine, Yellowheart CEO Josh Katz explained how this technology is the key to YellowHeart’s success:

“Blockchain offers us the unique ability to track the entire ticketing lifecycle, which means the tickets end up in the hands of the fans, and no one else.”

Billboard went on to report that YellowHeart is just the latest startup to target the secondary market. 

London-based live ticketing company Dice, which recently partnered with Primavera Sound, and San Francisco-based online ticket exchange Lyte, are also working on technology to take on the secondary markets and issue the revenue percentages creative artists (behind the live events) deserve. 

Solving Intellectual Property Rights

The existing structures used to manage music rights currently lack transparency and security and are essentially in need of a major overhaul. 

Blockchain tech provides the chance to precisely and effectively track ownership of music rights. Moreover, rights can be purchased and sold with secure payment schemes, with all contracts traced and supported by these blockchain networks.

By introducing blockchains to the management of music rights, it allows the process to be simplified and managed in a standardized way, allowing anybody to identify the owner of a musical work and for rights owners to sell their rights on the market transparently and securely. 

The Open Music Initiative is one venture that is deploying this idea by crafting an open-sourced protocol that brings standardization to intellectual property rights management in the music business. The project comprises many companies and organizations that participate in the music industry. 

Similarly, a project named Mycelia is working to solve intellectual property rights concerns by creating blockchain-verified profiles and identifying artists in which digital rights can be stored and transferred. 

Mycelia combines the concept of blockchain-based digital identities by securing digital property rights.

Conclusion

The artists who create musical works deserve their fair compensation. It seems that technology-driven platforms like YellowHeart and the use of the blockchain open ledger that shows the most promise of having systems in the music business changed and music’s true worth upheld.

Blockchain can also be deployed to help ensure the protection of an artist’s intellectual property rights and change the authentication and sale of concert tickets. 

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Blockchain has an enormous potential to transform the music industry for the better in the coming months and years, mainly by assisting artists who wish to have more control over the creation, distribution, and sale of their music and products.