Real-world Examples of Blockchain in music
In conclusion, blockchain technology offers a new solution to some of the challenges faced by the music industry. However, there is still a long way to go before blockchain can be fully implemented in the music industry.
Overview of Blockchain Platforms in Music
The arrival of blockchain technology has changed the way the music industry works. It has opened the door to decentralisation and given artists more power than ever before. Several platforms have been built to use blockchain technology to solve problems in the music industry, such as fair revenue distribution, managing rights, selling tickets, and getting fans involved. Audius, Royal, Opulous, Melodity, GUTS and many more are some of these platforms. Each platform has its own features and ways to use them. For example Audius is music streaming services that are built on the blockchain. This means that artists can connect directly with listeners and get paid more fairly. Royal sells song rights as non-exclusive licences (NFTs), so artists and fans can own music together and share royalties. GUTS uses blockchain technology to sell tickets, which stops people from stealing tickets or selling them to other people.
The case of Tiny Human song by Imogen Heap with “Mycelia”
Imogen Heap, a British singer-songwriter, has been a pioneering figure in the intersection of music and technology. She has consistently looked for ways to innovate within the industry, from self-releasing her album “Speak for Yourself” to developing musical gloves for sound manipulation with her team at MiMu. Her most ambitious project yet is a platform called Mycelia, which seeks to revolutionize the music industry by leveraging blockchain technology to distribute and monetize music and its associated data.
The idea behind Mycelia emerged from the challenges faced by the music industry in the digital age. The shift from physical to digital music consumption brought about a significant disruption in the industry, with rampant piracy and the advent of free streaming services causing music to be de facto free for many users. Although platforms like Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube found ways to monetize music again, these solutions were not without their issues. For instance, Spotify shares 70% of its income to copyright holders, while YouTube gives copyright owners the choice to remove their content, monetize it through advertising, or leave it and collect usage data.
Heap’s Mycelia platform leverages blockchain technology, initially developed for Bitcoin, to address these challenges. Blockchain technology creates a permanent, unchangeable record of transactions, making it ideal for tracking and verifying royalty payments in the music industry. The release of Heap’s song “Tiny Human” on the platform in October 2015 was a live experiment to test the capabilities of this new system. The performance and implications of this new approach were tracked and reported over the following 24 hours, serving as a litmus test for this innovative way of connecting artists with audiences
‘I want to help move things along’: Imogen Heap photographed in London by Phil Fisk
Cases
Audius
Audius, a decentralized music streaming service that emerged in 2018, has continued to gain recognition and support, both from the music industry and from the blockchain community. As a blockchain protocol, it lets artists produce immutable and timestamped records for their creative works, secured by a decentralized network of node operators. Often referred to as ‘SoundCloud on the blockchain,’ Audius allows independent artists to upload their music to its decentralized platform. The service is built on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, providing a community-run platform, unlike traditional music streaming services that are managed by a single entity.
In recent years, Audius has attracted significant funding from notable artists and industry investors. In a funding round announced in May 2023, Audius raised $5 million, with contributions from such prominent artists as Katy Perry, Nas, The Chainsmokers, Jason Derulo, and Pusha T. Other strategic investments have been made by Steve Aoki, Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, and Disclosure. These artists, while still firmly rooted in the traditional music industry, have expressed interest in the potential of blockchain technology in music distribution and are taking steps to engage with and support Audius.
Since its launch, Audius has shown promising growth, with a user base that reached six million monthly active users by May 2023. The platform hosts more than 100,000 artists, including well-known names like Skrillex, Weezer, deadmau5, Diplo, and Odesza, alongside many new artists who may gain exposure through the platform. To further enhance the reach of its artists, Audius announced a partnership with TikTok, allowing artists to upload their music directly to the video-sharing platform in a user-friendly manner. This partnership not only benefits Audius and its artists but also represents a significant development for the broader crypto community, as it demonstrates the potential for mainstream adoption of blockchain-based platforms.
The governance of Audius is managed through the AUDIO token. Token holders, which may include top artists and active users who earn tokens as rewards, have voting rights and control over decisions made on the platform, similar to shareholders in traditional companies.
As Audius expands, its creative use of blockchain technology to democratise music streaming demonstrates the potential for similar blockchain applications across many industries. The platform’s emphasis on providing everyone the ability to distribute, monetize, and stream any audio content has received positive feedback from artists, fans, and developers alike, paving the path for a more egalitarian music industry.
Royal
Royal is an innovative platform that uses blockchain technology to change the way music rights and revenue are handled. Royal lets artists and their fans co-own music and share royalties by selling song rights as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This new model gives artists more control over their music and is different from the traditional music business, in which artists often give up a lot of their rights and possible earnings to record labels and publishers. Artists pick how much of their song’s royalties to sell on Royal. They can also add things like exclusive fan experiences, special songs, and digital art to the package. Once a user buys a token, they can collect royalties for a song as they come in. This gives them a direct way to make money from the music they like. These tokens can also be resold on an NFT exchange, creating a new and exciting way to buy and sell music.
The platform shows how blockchain technology could open up the music industry to more people. By making a direct link between artists and their fans, it makes it easier for artists to get their fair share of the money and gives fans a unique way to support and take part in the careers of their favourite artists. Royal also makes special ways for fans to interact with the company. For example, when The Chainsmokers released an album on Royal, token holders were promised not only a share of the album’s streaming royalties, but also first access to tickets, merchandise, and events, as well as planned giveaways and surprises. This method makes the connection between artists and fans stronger and gives token ownership more value.
The Founder
Justin Blau, better known by his stage name 3LAU, is a well-known DJ, NFT art collector, and blockchain technology pioneer. In addition to his great music career, which includes over 1 billion streams and hefty cash from albums like “Ultraviolet,” he’s become a pioneer in monetizing digital art. Recognising the unique value proposition of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Blau co-founded Royal, a game-changing firm that allows fans to invest in music by purchasing tokens reflecting a portion in the copyright ownership of songs, allowing them to earn streaming royalties. In doing so, 3LAU challenges existing music industry institutions by fostering direct connections between artists and fans and innovatively integrating blockchain technology to music. Notably, 3LAU’s daring venture into NFTs paid off spectacularly, with his NFT collection fetching a record-breaking $11.6 million at an online auction. Beyond being an artist, he’s leading the road for other musicians to use this technology, with his management business, YMU, preparing further NFT auctions for other artists.
Opulous
Opulous is a unique platform that merges music with decentralized finance (DeFi). It is designed to allow users to not only purchase music as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), but also to acquire the copyright of the music. The monthly royalty income from music is distributed to the holders of these NFTs. Additionally, musicians can apply for loans on the platform using their music works and royalty income as support.
Opulous seeks to address the issue of unfair royalty distribution in music streaming by offering a decentralized music hosting, discovery, and listening platform that allows users to more directly support artists. This platform is based on the Ethereum blockchain with tracks stored on the Interplanetary File System (IFPS), significantly reducing server costs. While many popular streaming platforms provide artists with less than 20% of the streaming revenue, expected revenue on Opulous is 90% and above.
The platform further incentivizes music discovery by allowing users to receive a share of royalties for creating playlists that help spread music throughout the platform.
Bitsong
Melodity
Melodity is a blockchain-based music platform aiming to significantly advance the music industry towards a more decentralized creator economy. The company is creating a unique blockchain ecosystem, incorporating streaming services, play-to-earn (P2E) mechanisms, and a music-oriented Metaverse. This infrastructure is designed to support a wide range of users, including music artists, professionals, influencers, creators, fans, gamers, and music lovers.
On the Melodity platform, various stakeholders, from artists and influencers to investors and brands, have the opportunity to tap into the creative and economic potential of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This is achieved by unlocking hidden value and creating new digital assets and virtual experiences. It promises to go beyond traditional music distribution platforms, better suiting today’s artful composition and music production markets.
GUTS
GUTS is a ticketing system that uses blockchain technology to track who owns smart tickets. This makes it impossible for fake tickets to be sold. The system is set up so that tickets can only be sold or resold at a price set by the event organiser and/or the artist. This means that secondary tickets won’t have to be sold for a lot of money or come with a lot of fees. By showing who owns the tickets and what they are being used for, the platform gives you full control and real-time insight into the event cycle. It lets you make and check any kind of ticket and lets you resell them in a controlled way.
Also, it lets people make tickets for multiple channels on the primary market and sell them again in a controlled way on the secondary market. GUTS also lets you buy and sell any number of ticket types and add-ons in one place. This feature saves a lot of time and keeps expensive mistakes from happening. It also gives real-time revenue payouts and financial insights. The system is set up so that only the people running the event can decide when and how tickets will be sold or resold.
They can keep prices the same, give discounts to certain groups, or even set up prices that change over time. In terms of marketing, GUTS helps get useful information from people who have bought tickets in the past and from their friend groups. This feature lets organisers reach out to specific groups, find the most active users, and plan their next steps. GUTS is driven by the goal of getting rid of all dishonest business practises in the ticketing world. GUTS makes it easy for people of all ages to buy tickets by using new technologies like blockchain and dynamic QR codes. GUTS has sold tickets to hundreds of events over the past few years, including stadium concerts, international business conferences, and dance parties attended by thousands of people from dozens of countries.
Conclusion
Throughout this course, we have explored the complex landscape of the music industry, delving into its inherent challenges and the potential solutions offered by blockchain technology. We dissected the traditional music industry, which is composed of various individuals and organizations that earn money by creating and selling music and related products. We learned about the significant shifts in the industry brought about by digital distribution of music via the internet, leading to the rise of streaming services as primary music retailers and a marked decline in physical sales of music.
Next, we discussed the issues plaguing the music industry, such as problems related to copyrights and royalties. We discovered how the complexity of the traditional system often results in artists waiting for long periods to receive their due royalties and discussed issues with metadata storage that could potentially prevent artists from being credited and paid fairly.
We then introduced blockchain technology as a promising solution to these challenges. Blockchain can expedite the royalty payment process and enforce copyrights more effectively through tokenization of work. It also provides a more robust system for storing and managing metadata to ensure fair payment. We also covered how blockchain facilitates direct fan engagement, crowdfunding and everything related to the music industry with real-example platforms allowing artists to receive funding directly from their fans.
In conclusion, blockchain technology offers a new solution to some of the challenges faced by the music industry. However, there is still a long way to go before blockchain can be fully implemented in the music industry. While it may be difficult to make this change, it is important to keep an open mind and explore the possibility that blockchain technology can bring to the music industry.
Real-world Examples of Blockchain in music
In conclusion, blockchain technology offers a new solution to some of the challenges faced by the music industry. However, there is still a long way to go before blockchain can be fully implemented in the music industry.
Overview of Blockchain Platforms in Music
The arrival of blockchain technology has changed the way the music industry works. It has opened the door to decentralisation and given artists more power than ever before. Several platforms have been built to use blockchain technology to solve problems in the music industry, such as fair revenue distribution, managing rights, selling tickets, and getting fans involved. Audius, Royal, Opulous, Melodity, GUTS and many more are some of these platforms. Each platform has its own features and ways to use them. For example Audius is music streaming services that are built on the blockchain. This means that artists can connect directly with listeners and get paid more fairly. Royal sells song rights as non-exclusive licences (NFTs), so artists and fans can own music together and share royalties. GUTS uses blockchain technology to sell tickets, which stops people from stealing tickets or selling them to other people.
The case of Tiny Human song by Imogen Heap with “Mycelia”
Imogen Heap, a British singer-songwriter, has been a pioneering figure in the intersection of music and technology. She has consistently looked for ways to innovate within the industry, from self-releasing her album “Speak for Yourself” to developing musical gloves for sound manipulation with her team at MiMu. Her most ambitious project yet is a platform called Mycelia, which seeks to revolutionize the music industry by leveraging blockchain technology to distribute and monetize music and its associated data.
The idea behind Mycelia emerged from the challenges faced by the music industry in the digital age. The shift from physical to digital music consumption brought about a significant disruption in the industry, with rampant piracy and the advent of free streaming services causing music to be de facto free for many users. Although platforms like Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube found ways to monetize music again, these solutions were not without their issues. For instance, Spotify shares 70% of its income to copyright holders, while YouTube gives copyright owners the choice to remove their content, monetize it through advertising, or leave it and collect usage data.
Heap’s Mycelia platform leverages blockchain technology, initially developed for Bitcoin, to address these challenges. Blockchain technology creates a permanent, unchangeable record of transactions, making it ideal for tracking and verifying royalty payments in the music industry. The release of Heap’s song “Tiny Human” on the platform in October 2015 was a live experiment to test the capabilities of this new system. The performance and implications of this new approach were tracked and reported over the following 24 hours, serving as a litmus test for this innovative way of connecting artists with audiences
‘I want to help move things along’: Imogen Heap photographed in London by Phil Fisk
Cases
Audius
Audius, a decentralized music streaming service that emerged in 2018, has continued to gain recognition and support, both from the music industry and from the blockchain community. As a blockchain protocol, it lets artists produce immutable and timestamped records for their creative works, secured by a decentralized network of node operators. Often referred to as ‘SoundCloud on the blockchain,’ Audius allows independent artists to upload their music to its decentralized platform. The service is built on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, providing a community-run platform, unlike traditional music streaming services that are managed by a single entity.
In recent years, Audius has attracted significant funding from notable artists and industry investors. In a funding round announced in May 2023, Audius raised $5 million, with contributions from such prominent artists as Katy Perry, Nas, The Chainsmokers, Jason Derulo, and Pusha T. Other strategic investments have been made by Steve Aoki, Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, and Disclosure. These artists, while still firmly rooted in the traditional music industry, have expressed interest in the potential of blockchain technology in music distribution and are taking steps to engage with and support Audius.
Since its launch, Audius has shown promising growth, with a user base that reached six million monthly active users by May 2023. The platform hosts more than 100,000 artists, including well-known names like Skrillex, Weezer, deadmau5, Diplo, and Odesza, alongside many new artists who may gain exposure through the platform. To further enhance the reach of its artists, Audius announced a partnership with TikTok, allowing artists to upload their music directly to the video-sharing platform in a user-friendly manner. This partnership not only benefits Audius and its artists but also represents a significant development for the broader crypto community, as it demonstrates the potential for mainstream adoption of blockchain-based platforms.
The governance of Audius is managed through the AUDIO token. Token holders, which may include top artists and active users who earn tokens as rewards, have voting rights and control over decisions made on the platform, similar to shareholders in traditional companies.
As Audius expands, its creative use of blockchain technology to democratise music streaming demonstrates the potential for similar blockchain applications across many industries. The platform’s emphasis on providing everyone the ability to distribute, monetize, and stream any audio content has received positive feedback from artists, fans, and developers alike, paving the path for a more egalitarian music industry.
Royal
Royal is an innovative platform that uses blockchain technology to change the way music rights and revenue are handled. Royal lets artists and their fans co-own music and share royalties by selling song rights as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This new model gives artists more control over their music and is different from the traditional music business, in which artists often give up a lot of their rights and possible earnings to record labels and publishers. Artists pick how much of their song’s royalties to sell on Royal. They can also add things like exclusive fan experiences, special songs, and digital art to the package. Once a user buys a token, they can collect royalties for a song as they come in. This gives them a direct way to make money from the music they like. These tokens can also be resold on an NFT exchange, creating a new and exciting way to buy and sell music.
The platform shows how blockchain technology could open up the music industry to more people. By making a direct link between artists and their fans, it makes it easier for artists to get their fair share of the money and gives fans a unique way to support and take part in the careers of their favourite artists. Royal also makes special ways for fans to interact with the company. For example, when The Chainsmokers released an album on Royal, token holders were promised not only a share of the album’s streaming royalties, but also first access to tickets, merchandise, and events, as well as planned giveaways and surprises. This method makes the connection between artists and fans stronger and gives token ownership more value.
The Founder
Justin Blau, better known by his stage name 3LAU, is a well-known DJ, NFT art collector, and blockchain technology pioneer. In addition to his great music career, which includes over 1 billion streams and hefty cash from albums like “Ultraviolet,” he’s become a pioneer in monetizing digital art. Recognising the unique value proposition of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Blau co-founded Royal, a game-changing firm that allows fans to invest in music by purchasing tokens reflecting a portion in the copyright ownership of songs, allowing them to earn streaming royalties. In doing so, 3LAU challenges existing music industry institutions by fostering direct connections between artists and fans and innovatively integrating blockchain technology to music. Notably, 3LAU’s daring venture into NFTs paid off spectacularly, with his NFT collection fetching a record-breaking $11.6 million at an online auction. Beyond being an artist, he’s leading the road for other musicians to use this technology, with his management business, YMU, preparing further NFT auctions for other artists.
Opulous
Opulous is a unique platform that merges music with decentralized finance (DeFi). It is designed to allow users to not only purchase music as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), but also to acquire the copyright of the music. The monthly royalty income from music is distributed to the holders of these NFTs. Additionally, musicians can apply for loans on the platform using their music works and royalty income as support.
Opulous seeks to address the issue of unfair royalty distribution in music streaming by offering a decentralized music hosting, discovery, and listening platform that allows users to more directly support artists. This platform is based on the Ethereum blockchain with tracks stored on the Interplanetary File System (IFPS), significantly reducing server costs. While many popular streaming platforms provide artists with less than 20% of the streaming revenue, expected revenue on Opulous is 90% and above.
The platform further incentivizes music discovery by allowing users to receive a share of royalties for creating playlists that help spread music throughout the platform.
Bitsong
Melodity
Melodity is a blockchain-based music platform aiming to significantly advance the music industry towards a more decentralized creator economy. The company is creating a unique blockchain ecosystem, incorporating streaming services, play-to-earn (P2E) mechanisms, and a music-oriented Metaverse. This infrastructure is designed to support a wide range of users, including music artists, professionals, influencers, creators, fans, gamers, and music lovers.
On the Melodity platform, various stakeholders, from artists and influencers to investors and brands, have the opportunity to tap into the creative and economic potential of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This is achieved by unlocking hidden value and creating new digital assets and virtual experiences. It promises to go beyond traditional music distribution platforms, better suiting today’s artful composition and music production markets.
GUTS
GUTS is a ticketing system that uses blockchain technology to track who owns smart tickets. This makes it impossible for fake tickets to be sold. The system is set up so that tickets can only be sold or resold at a price set by the event organiser and/or the artist. This means that secondary tickets won’t have to be sold for a lot of money or come with a lot of fees. By showing who owns the tickets and what they are being used for, the platform gives you full control and real-time insight into the event cycle. It lets you make and check any kind of ticket and lets you resell them in a controlled way.
Also, it lets people make tickets for multiple channels on the primary market and sell them again in a controlled way on the secondary market. GUTS also lets you buy and sell any number of ticket types and add-ons in one place. This feature saves a lot of time and keeps expensive mistakes from happening. It also gives real-time revenue payouts and financial insights. The system is set up so that only the people running the event can decide when and how tickets will be sold or resold.
They can keep prices the same, give discounts to certain groups, or even set up prices that change over time. In terms of marketing, GUTS helps get useful information from people who have bought tickets in the past and from their friend groups. This feature lets organisers reach out to specific groups, find the most active users, and plan their next steps. GUTS is driven by the goal of getting rid of all dishonest business practises in the ticketing world. GUTS makes it easy for people of all ages to buy tickets by using new technologies like blockchain and dynamic QR codes. GUTS has sold tickets to hundreds of events over the past few years, including stadium concerts, international business conferences, and dance parties attended by thousands of people from dozens of countries.
Conclusion
Throughout this course, we have explored the complex landscape of the music industry, delving into its inherent challenges and the potential solutions offered by blockchain technology. We dissected the traditional music industry, which is composed of various individuals and organizations that earn money by creating and selling music and related products. We learned about the significant shifts in the industry brought about by digital distribution of music via the internet, leading to the rise of streaming services as primary music retailers and a marked decline in physical sales of music.
Next, we discussed the issues plaguing the music industry, such as problems related to copyrights and royalties. We discovered how the complexity of the traditional system often results in artists waiting for long periods to receive their due royalties and discussed issues with metadata storage that could potentially prevent artists from being credited and paid fairly.
We then introduced blockchain technology as a promising solution to these challenges. Blockchain can expedite the royalty payment process and enforce copyrights more effectively through tokenization of work. It also provides a more robust system for storing and managing metadata to ensure fair payment. We also covered how blockchain facilitates direct fan engagement, crowdfunding and everything related to the music industry with real-example platforms allowing artists to receive funding directly from their fans.
In conclusion, blockchain technology offers a new solution to some of the challenges faced by the music industry. However, there is still a long way to go before blockchain can be fully implemented in the music industry. While it may be difficult to make this change, it is important to keep an open mind and explore the possibility that blockchain technology can bring to the music industry.