Get the weekly summary of crypto market analysis, news, and forecasts! This Week’s Summary The crypto market ends the week at a total market capitalization of $2,17 trillion. Bitcoin continues to trade at around $62,300. Ethereum experiences no changes and stagnates at around $2,400. XRP is down by 2%, Solana by 1%, and Dogecoin by 3%. Almost all altcoins are trading in the red, with very few exceptions. The DeFi sector decreased the total value of protocols (TVL) to around…
How Blockchain Technology Is Changing the Music Industry
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Over the years, blockchain technology has proved its utility in various industries. However, some sectors have yet to elude the new technological advent. One is the music industry, a multi-billion-dollar market that could benefit significantly from decentralized public ledgers. Read on to find out how music and blockchain could merge successfully!
What Is Blockchain?
In 2008, a mysterious person or group using Satoshi Nakamoto’s pseudonyms introduced blockchain technology in the Bitcoin whitepaper. Since then, many have regarded the document as one of the most influential pieces in cryptocurrency history.
The blockchain part of its name derives from a fundamental concept: blocks. In cryptography, a block is a data sequence that can hold encrypted messages. Also, it can verify its integrity without revealing any information except its value.
Each block on the Bitcoin blockchain typically contains two important things:
1) Metadata about transactions (e.g., sender, receiver, and transaction amount)
2) Proof-of-work (i.e., the computational effort required to produce)
The blockchain is distributed, meaning no single computer controls its existence or use. So, for example, no single institution can take away the users’ coins or manipulate financial activity on the ledger. Meanwhile, users maintain complete control over their private keys and addresses. This way, they can transfer their funds as they please without the approval of a centralized authority.
The blockchain survives even if several computers fail because its data remains on multiple nodes worldwide. However, this decentralized network cannot operate on a single node because it needs more storage. Instead, all nodes work as copies of the blockchain, validating its consistency every few minutes.
How will blockchain change the music industry?
In music, people often refer to blockchain as an artists’ rights database or a digital rights management system (DRM).
Why would artists want to upload their intellectual property on a public platform?
Why would they choose one blockchain over another?
And why might they need their blockchain and any other existing ones?
As artists answer these questions, they understand that blockchain provides many additional opportunities for musicians. As a result, they start to use them.
These opportunities include licensing songs directly to users instead of using a third-party service like Spotify. Also, blockchain enables them to collect micropayments from streaming instead of having their song streamed for free on other services. Lastly, this technology allows them to verify fan tribute payments as proof of play vs. proof of listening.
Blockchain Benefits for the Music Industry
Blockchain opens plenty of possibilities for analytics, marketing strategies, and building up fan bases. Also, it enables them to monetize multiple streams, such as crowdfunding concerts or pre-sales for albums and songs.
Other benefits of blockchain in the music industry include the following:
Eradicating the role of middlemen
The music industry has been in a period of flux for years now. For instance, album sales have been declining dramatically. Meanwhile, streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music continue to overgrow. Also, fans prefer going online to find new artists, which reduces income from concerts and gigs. Lastly, with higher contract and copyright fees, big recording companies benefit at the musicians’ expense.
On the other hand, blockchain aims to change the status quo by eliminating these gatekeepers. For example, through this technology, any musician can launch an ICO and allow people to buy digital tokens representing songs or albums. Also, they could get passive income every time users play one of their songs. And all of this would take place without additional fees to recording companies, managers, or streaming services.
Easier Collaborations between Artists
Blockchain makes music collaboration easier. Before blockchain, artists or songwriters often had to rely on third parties like record labels to publish their work. Also, that practice required paying high fees and handing over part of their rights.
Now, musicians can independently upload their work to a decentralized platform using smart contracts. These contracts automatically transfer payments to them when their work sells without third-party involvement.
Smart contracts also avoid potential problems like delayed payments. Blockchain makes it easier for musicians to share content directly and get money for it faster. Also, artists can collaborate with whomever they want without their manager’s or producers’ approval. Blockchain gives them complete freedom of association.
More Incentives for Creators
Blockchain offers incentive schemes to music artists. For instance, this technology lets them license fans’ content and receive real-time payments. Conversely, streaming services pay musicians pennies every time users play their music. However, all that could change as blockchain can provide artists with a substantially higher income from play-to-earn practices. Most importantly, this could motivate musicians to create more high-quality content.
Conclusion
Btc
Bitcoin
$62.547
price
price
0.84959%
price change
Blockchain is proving to be a successful means of monetization for many industries. Fortunately, the music sector is slowly warming to this technology. As more artists use the blockchain to reach their fans, they access higher revenue streams and newfound creative freedom. We can only hope that this merger between musicians and decentralized ledgers will happen sooner than later.
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