When we hear the word Blockchain, many automatically think of cryptocurrencies. However, as it turns out, the technology has applications in many other economic and industrial sectors. It has also been actively supporting the music industry for several years. What can be the impact of blockchain on the music industry? What benefits does it offer? We explain.
Table of contents
What do we know about the development of the music industry?
Living under pandemic conditions has brought tremendous changes in every area. For example, those working in a culture where the work requires direct interaction with people or gathering an audience have been completely disrupted. As a result, the supply of many contents such as music, movies and series has come to a standstill. At the same time, however, the reduction in mobility and work opportunities has freed up additional time and resources for a significant portion of the population. This, in turn, means that digitally-delivered entertainment and culture have never been more desirable than it is now.
While the popularity of video games, esports or VOD streaming is experiencing strong growth, the music sector appears to be at a loss. Despite the shift to digital distribution of recordings and its growing market share over the past few years, the revenues of male and female music artists have been based mainly on the concert business. This, however, as we know, has been temporarily halted altogether. It is difficult to estimate potential losses, but there is talk of billions of dollars from live performances alone.
Blockchain in the music industry – future changes
Some digital trends that were only a niche market a few years ago have gained momentum with the development of Blockchain technology. How does Blockchain affect the music industry?
Music without intermediaries
Until now, behind every famous star was a music label. As you might guess, a whole staff of people meant high costs and the need for profit sharing. Often, in addition, this was done disproportionately to the musician’s involvement. As a result, the manager and staff made the most money, while the artist was left with much less in his account than he expected.
With the popularization of Blockchain technology in music, the situation has changed dramatically. Thanks to it, musicians can transfer ownership of copyrights to any person or keep them for themselves, bypassing intermediaries and thus their commissions. Everything becomes easily verifiable and transparent, regardless of how many copies of a given work appear on the market.
Easy identification of copyrights
The PR of the Internet is spoiled by one major issue – piracy. The culture of “copy-and-paste” has resulted in the fact that, nowadays, violating someone’s copyright is almost universal. However, it should be remembered that all content we can find on the Internet appears there because of specific people. This also applies to musical works.
Fortunately, Blockchain allows creators to control what happens to their recordings quickly. With widespread access to transaction history, we can easily see who is the actual author of a song. It is also possible to track how many fans have bought a particular record. Rapper Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson took advantage of this possibility and was one of the first in history to sell his album “Animal Ambition” for bitcoins. Not long after him, in 2014, the musicians of the metal band Mastodon came up with a similar idea.
Music tokenization
Music is enjoyed by virtually everyone daily. However, the music industry has constantly changed over the past decades. Physical records sales have declined, and online streaming is sometimes not very profitable, even for musicians with millions of fans.
Blockchain in music industry can change the fortunes of artists, increasing fan engagement and generating profits. An NFT is a digital certificate certifying ownership of unique work. Interestingly, this work can be a piece of music, a concert ticket or a T-shirt with the logo of a favorite band. This is an entirely new type of music content distribution, which perfectly protects creators’ copyright and eliminates intermediaries.
The growing popularity of Blockchain technology in music industry is bound to make musicians more widely adapt it to their needs and benefit from it in the years to come. Thus, it is worth constantly reviewing the market for novelties and adapting the best practices to their music operations.
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