Fortune: Will blockchain be the next disruptor in the music industry?

Rage Comment : Publishers, producers, economic companies and other intermediary companies will take a share of the music works, which will reduce the income of artists and musicians, and it will take 6-18 months to get this income. With the blockchain, the trust between participants is not established through powerful intermediaries such as record companies, streaming services or credit card companies, but through the cooperation between these devices running software. There will be no opacity in accounting, no delay in payment, and no confusion about who owns or controls the copyright.

Translation: Nicole

Anyone who knows anything about the music industry knows there is a lot of competition among artists. The traditional food chain is long-standing: those who create music and those who buy it - music fans, concert goers, advertisers, rights licensors and corporate sponsors - there are many publishers, producers, economic companies, etc. who all have a stake in the industry. Each intermediary takes a piece of the pie, and the rest is the income of artists and musicians, and this income takes up to 6-18 months to get.

Many people thought the Internet would democratize industries, but the opposite is true.

In 2015, Songwriters of Canada (SAC) director Eddie Schwartz told members of the International Literary and Artistic Association:

"In the late 20th century, if my song sold 1 million copies, I would get $45,000 in royalties and be awarded platinum status. Today, the major music services pay me an average of $0.000035 per stream, or $35 per 1 million streams, cutting out a lot of the middleman costs."

We have gone from one extreme to the other, and now the industry can start collaborating to build a healthy, sustainable, and frictionless ecosystem that benefits everyone in the value chain, not just a few.

Eddie Schwartz

Big tech companies and streaming audio services have taken a lot of the revenue, leaving most artists with less, less control over their work, and less visibility into who is listening to their work. The services have become so complex, powerful, and centralized that artists like Taylor Swift and Jay-Z have already left Spotify, and for most people, it’s not an option.

Blockchain-based platforms can change all of this - the sleek code of smart contracts and the ability to connect data. This new technology can run on thousands of devices, from desktop computers to smartphones, and is open to everyone, allowing not only the secure and private transfer of information, but also the storage of funds and other things. Trust between participants is established not through powerful intermediaries such as record labels, streaming services or credit card companies, but through the cooperation between these devices running software.

Toronto industrial rock band 22Hertz has embraced blockchain, creating hashes of complete songs — lyrics and melodies — as proof of ownership, which only costs a small fee. The band's online store is currently running a promotion where fans can buy CDs and shirts for half the price if they pay with Bitcoin, and can also download song files for free by tipping in Bitcoin. Canadian cellist and composer Zo? Keating, who is also a friend of Imogen, plans to use blockchain to interact directly with his fans and friends, providing them with privileges and providing better transparency for potential customers and partners, rather than just registering and marketing digital rights.

Various companies have begun working with forward-thinking musicians to develop a fair and sustainable music ecosystem for artists, turning songs into businesses that not only allow creators to get paid, but also allow fans and creators to interact. For example, Imogen's song "Tiny Human" was released to the beta blockchain platform UjoMusic, and all credits and license terms were sent to it. The digital currency Ethereum can be used to download songs for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Through smart contracts, Ethereum can be sent to the musician's personal Ethereum wallet in real time.

Nick Mason of Pink Floyd recently wrote a report - "If blockchain technology is going to be the future, we need to dig

In a paper published in July by Middlesex University, the authors write that if blockchain technology is going to be the future, then we should delve into it and make it happen. But how? Looking at how it works, artists can register their intellectual property on a blockchain by linking all the elements — lyrics, music, album text, cover art, licensing information, audio and video performances of the work — to create a better peer-to-peer music database that is globally verifiable and currently doesn’t exist.

Using smart contracts — essentially templates for terms of service for fans, distributors, sponsors and licensors, allowing revenue to be distributed directly to contributors, collaborators and promoters — artists can decide who and how can interact with their work, saving a lot of paperwork.

Every party involved—artists, managers, musicians, producers, record labels—can see all relevant transactions on the blockchain and can track who paid royalties and who received how much. There is no opacity in accounting, no delays in payments, and no confusion about who owns or controls the copyright.

Through a series of technical, ethical and business standards, such an ecosystem can allow a new music and service market to flourish, and finally all the information related to music that has been recorded can be obtained, which is linked to a distributed blockchain network of personal computers. Participants who want to cooperate with artists and music works in the ecosystem can do so without worrying about institutional friction, from finding collaborators to sharing skill sets to commissioning new work, and hiring a tour manager or local cellist.

What about record companies and distributors like Spotify and YouTube? Can blockchain achieve complete decentralization?

No, if they adopt and embrace change, they can benefit from this database. Like all new technologies, blockchain brings changes to the technology set and opens up many new opportunities. There is a growing demand for content management and marketing, record companies can better help music fans choose from thousands of music, publishers, and they can also verify that the data is correct. At a certain stage, artists will naturally cooperate with these and other participants.

What we mean is that artists can sustain themselves through their own ecosystems rather than starving on the margins of numerous other ecosystems.

This is the promise of a fair and sustainable music system that can be achieved through the adoption of blockchain technology.