February, 2016

How the Blockchain Can Change the Music Industry (Part 2)

1l-vzpqvsl0r9mh7apum-waI could never have imagined that the article I wrote would have the impact that it has, and I am humbled, stunned, and excited by the outpouring of interest and support that has come my way.

In the short time since it came out, I have been overwhelmed by offers to speak publicly, offers of help and even offers to fund “what you are building.”

So I need to be clear here before we begin: this is not something that I am building. I am the CEO of an amazing company PledgeMusic whose amazing women and men solve what I refer to as the “first mile” problem of the music industry, by eliminating risk, creating engagement and giving artists both money and data to go off and make their music. In short, we help create the rights that the proposed .bc (or dotblockchain) format seeks to codify.

This is a full time job, and it is one that I love deeply. The “last mile” problem, which is the one that this project seeks to solve, is something that I care so very deeply about but that I could not solve on my own (even if I didn’t have a job already). This needs to be solved by all of us, an industry-wide initiative to fix the very problems that we created. I will do all that I can — mornings, lunches, nights and weekends — to advocate for it, but it’s not one person’s job. It’s our job, and that includes you who are reading this.

Source: Cuepoint

7 Cool Decentralized Apps Being Built on Ethereum

Imagine a company or service that isn’t controlled by any single individual, board or other central entity.

Known as a , or ‘dapp’ for short, the concept has been one of the more novel ideas to emerge from the blockchain community. Armed with self-executing smart contracts, proponents of the technology have envisioned ways to replace everything that today requires a centralized leadership, from businesses and services to governments.

In some ways, bitcoin could be considered the first dapp, as it is fully open-source, rewards contributors, runs without a central authority and uses blockchain technology to help facilitate its continued use case as an online currency.

Source: CoinDesk

PwC Director: Blockchain Impact Could Create Winners and Losers

Global professional services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) became the latest big-name firm to make its blockchain service offerings public this month, unveiling a solution portfolio designed to take business clients from ideation to iteration as they explore the emerging technology.

The PwC Blockchain Solution Portfolio, a suite of 12 services aimed at spanning the cycle of analysis ongoing at major financial firms, features elements focused on education, evaluation and, ultimately, fostering collaboration between PwC clients and industry partners.

Source: CoinDesk

Mediachain is Using Blockchain to Create a Global Rights Database

One of the biggest, still-dormant use cases for blockchain technology is in the field of media – the overarching term capturing a slew of creative professions whose traditional business models have been upended by lightning-fast digital file replication.

Across various fields, the problems are clear: writers, photographers and musicians lack the ability to prove and protect ownership of their works and ideas, a prospect that renders monetization in a digital environment difficult.In the face of this challenge, blockchain tech, with its ability to provide provenance, identity and micropayments has emerged as a potential antidote.

One of the more unique projects innovating in this area is Mediachain, a newly launched metadata protocol that allows digital creators to attach information to their creative works, timestamp that data to the bitcoin blockchain and store it with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a distributed file system incorporating aspects of blockchain technology.

Source: CoinDesk

Rumblefish Streamlines Rights Management for Digitally Imported

rf_logo_stdRumblefish, the nation’s leading provider of rights management solutions for the music industry, has entered into an agreement with Digitally Imported, the premier online radio destination for electronic music fans around the world. Rumblefish, recently merged with The Harry Fox Agency’s (HFA) Slingshot rights management service, will streamline Digitally Imported licensing and royalty processes, in support of its music streaming business model.

Tapping Rumblefish allows Digitally Imported to focus on creating an unparalleled listening experience by eliminating the need to manage thousands of licensing relationships, manage copyright administration staff and program complex royalty formulas.

Digitally Imported will rely on Rumblefish for its U.S. interactive streaming licensing needs, including the royalty calculations, statements and distributions.

All the Music, All Year Long: Art-List Gives You Access to Their Entire Library for $200

You need something nuanced yet epic, and with the quality of a symphonic Rachel Portman.

Also, it needs to be licensed commercially. Oh, and did you mention you’re on a super tight budget? Familiar with this quandary, filmmaker Ira Belsky co-founded Art-List, a new subscription-based music licensing platform for independent filmmakers, offering you all the music you want for a yearly flat fee.

Catering to the world of independent filmmakers constantly in need of music that’s neither too MIDI nor too expensive, the subscription idea behind the Art-List sounds pretty enticing. Instead of a licensing fee per song, there is a yearly fee of $199 that gives get unlimited access to everything in the Art-List catalogue, which as of right now has around 1000 songs.

Considering you can often pay $100 to license a single high quality song, this could be a great resource. And having a subscription based model with no restrictions on how (and how often) you can use the tracks is a winning proposition for video professionals who are regularly producing content that needs music.

Source: NFS

Bitcoin’s Database Now Powers Monegraph, a Digital Art Marketplace

Digital artwork, from digital music to fine art, has been a growing area for a while now.

If a work is infinitely reproducible at no cost, however, how can a collector establish that they have an original or one of an edition? Monegraph takes advantage of the bitcoin database, the block chain, to log each transfer of a work (just as the database does for bitcoin), so that it really is set in stone who owns a digital piece at each moment.“It’s not about stopping piracy.

It’s about facilitating legitimate commerce,” Kevin McCoy, co-founder and CEO of Monegraph, told the Observer in an interview before the night’s presentations. He pointed to iTunes as an example of a marketplace for digital music.

He said people might have their complaints about how Apple did it, but it was a way for people to know they were purchasing authorized work. There hadn’t been a good way to do that before.

Once there was, people did it.

Source: Observer

Three Startups Trying to Transform the Music Industry Using the Blockchain

A gang of computer programmers – united by the Bitcoin technology – are trying to revolutionize an industry after 15 years of disruption which began with Napster and was cemented by BitTorrent.

Bitcoin’s blockchain – a decentralized system powered by a network of computers – serves as the transparent backbone of the Bitcoin network. The blockchain, which functions as a public ledger, maintains the accounting of the Bitcoin network, timestamping each transaction and assigning a unique ID.

Numerous individuals and companies are excited about the future of the blockchain and the music industry. Three companies, PeerTracks, Bittunes and Ujo Music, each claim their business model will liberate musicians from being under the thumbs of overbearing music labels and streaming services.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine

This Company Thinks It Can Turn Music Pirates Into Paying Customers

The music business has traditionally taken a hard-line approach to online music pirates.

Once upon a time, of course, it sued them directly – but that didn’t work out too well for anyone. These days, the general consensus at rights-holders is that a stern but educative series of warnings from a user’s ISP is the best route to stopping individual infringers – whilst simultaneously forcing broadband providers to block torrent sites in the courts.

But could there be another, kinder approach? Is the music business missing out on revenues by trying to warn, rather than directly convert, torrent site users online?

Content protection and data-analytics solutions specialist MUSO believes so.

Source: Music Business Worldwide

Video Could Save the Radio Star

Every artist should take a full inventory of themselves and their image, and then figure out how to monetize it.

They are missing huge opportunities if they don’t engage with the brands they love publicly, no matter how indie those brands might be.

In fact, indie brands are probably better — it’s a heck of a lot harder to strike a deal with Budwieser than it is to do something cool with a local brewery, and it feels more authentic in the end. It won’t pay the big bucks, but it’s a nice supplemental income and benefits all parties involved. If you’re an artist with great fashion sense, pair up with local indie designers and get some affiliate deals going.

Like food and have a particular take a cuisine — there are already a ton of those shows, but maybe a fresh spin will draw people in.Making interesting video content available serves all potential audiences — super fans will subscribe and consume everything, and casual fans can engage in a different way. The audio simply isn’t enough anymore — the video needs to be a key component of any artist’s career as well.

Source: Medium

Get the latest RightsTech news and analysis delivered directly in your inbox every week
We respect your privacy.