Blockchain

How Blockchain Technology influences the Music Industry?

By August 19, 2020 No Comments

The blockchain technology has influenced and helped many sectors since its inception in 2008. This technology is extremely advanced and has no competition as of now. Hence, be it banking, healthcare or the music industry,  all sectors of the trade are trying to incorporate it. 

There are many reasons how blockchain affects the Music Industry. Some of them are listed below:-

Enhanced Security:

Piracy has grown like a virus for the past 2 decades in the music industry. It has become one of the major concerns for all creative and talented musicians, as nobody wants their hard work to be stolen or copied. Recently, the music industry in the U.S. experienced:-

  • $12.5 Billion in total output costs
  • Loss of more than 70,000 jobs
  • The decline of revenue by $2.7 Billion in sound recording and retail industry

Blockchain technology helps to enhance technology and tackle piracy. This, in turn, helps the music industry decrease its losses due to piracy.

Intellectual Property Rights:

Blockchain can be used to determine the copyright of the particular intellectual property with the help of a Distributive Ledger. A Distributed Ledger is like a record book that contains all records of transactions within a blockchain. 

Hence, claiming ownership over the particular music can be done easily and can be used in the court of law, if it comes to that. The ledger makes it easier to determine the original owner of a particular song or music. The music industry sees many legal battles related to lyrics, music and the song itself. But this can be prevented by using blockchain technology. This would stabilize the music industry and help in resolving legal battles. 

Blockchain technology can also help:

  • In resolving any issues of purchased right of music, album or label between two or more parties.
  • Music labels to pay for buying the rights to use a particular music
  • An artist can claim his rights over the music with the entire history recorded in the blockchain technology.

The use of smart contracts can also go a long way in preventing future disputes from arising. Smart Contracts are self-regulated coded agreements between two parties that are managed by a P2P network. Any parties can sign this contract without needing the tradition contracts.

Fair Pay for all parties involved:

According to a report in 2017, the artists were paid only 12% of the total revenue generated in the music industry. This has lead to an uprise in the artists for a lack of fair pay for their hard work. This is generally due to a piece of music being sold on numerous platforms and no designed way to keep a track of it. Blockchain eliminates this problem.

Using blockchain, a music label or company can keep a record of all transactions across multiple platforms. This will create a transparent platform for all the parties involved and will give a fair picture of how much a record or music made. This will enable the artists to get a fair idea of their share and how much is the cost by third parties for selling their work.

This will also provide the editors, producers, songwriters, and sound engineers and collaborators with a chance to own the property right to a part of the song or music. In case the end-product does use the work of someone, they would know about the same and get their fair share of pay accordingly. end-product

Timely Payment:

Artists are generally not paid on time and are dependent on the agencies or companies to keep them updated with the revenue being generated and their share of the payment. These tend to misuse this power and exploit the artists. But with blockchain at the forefront, the artists will be regularly updated about the revenue generation, market value and will maintain the property rights of their work. 

With artists being aware of the revenue pouring in for their work, they can ask for their fair share of payment and receive it in a timely fashion.

Eliminating Distributors:

The most prominent use of blockchain is to eliminate the third parties involved in a transaction. Just like in cryptocurrency, blockchain eliminates the banking sector, the same can be done in the music industry.  Blockchain can play an instrumental role in bringing fans and artists closer. Just like readers pay to read content in content marketing, the fans can pay a micro fee for listening to an artist’s music. 

Some music companies already using Blockchain technology are:-

  1. Mycelia: A British Musician named Imogen Heap found this company. It was established with an aim to provide fair and timely payments to the artists by using ethical and technical standards in place. By the use of blockchain, they plan to convert this in a reality.
  2. Musicoin: They use the Pay-for-Play model, where the users have to pay for the music they listen to. They are using the smart-contracts feature by Ethereum and allow users to build their own network for distribution and generating revenue.
  3. Mediacoin: With a centralized focus on security, they want to create a platform to publish music, videos, and streaming services. These are paid by in token and anyone downloading the same without it will just get an unopenable file.
  4. Ujo: Another platform that is built on Ethereum, it is working to create a transparent database that records the ownership rights of all intellectual properties involved. 

It is estimated that within the next few years, the music industry will adapt to blockchain technology. This will reshape the entire music industry and make it more transparent and secure.

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