While the music industry’s data transparency problem has been much-discussed and contributed to uncollected royalties from streaming services that claim to not have the proper information needed to identify songwriters and copyright owners, Heiche also points towards business disputes and international accounting as sources of undistributed royalties.
Source: Sound Royalties Identifies $14 Million In Undistributed Royalties For Artists | Billboard
The idea of a copyright small-claims court, which has been discussed in Washington D.C. for several years, would not have a substantial effect on major labels or publishers. But it could make it easier for small companies and independent creators to enforce their rights.
DECENT aims to use its bespoke designed Blockchain and accompanying DCT token to offer a more rounded digital rights solution for artists. The startup was among the first to raise funds via the now-ubiquitous ICO last year.
Source: DECENT Launches GO Marketplace and Joins Blockchain Content Arena
In addition to removing inconsistencies, Blokur also tracks the percentage stake each right holder has in a specific piece of music, paying them out directly with cryptocurrency. And that process, Martin-Lopez estimates, earns each counterparty 4.4 percent more income on average.
Source: Fight for Your Right: Universal Music Veteran Launches Ethereum IP Platform – CoinDesk
Techstars Music 2018 accelerator starts in Los Angeles on February 5, 2018; and leader Bob Moczydlowsky and his team have launched a worldwide tour “to meet founders who are solving real problems for the global music business.”
Source: Techstars Music Accelerator Launches Global Search For 2018 Class – hypebot
With the ‘value gap’ debate around YouTube in full swing, it’s important to compare Nielsen’s video and audio stats. Audio accounted for 287.15bn on-demand streams in the first nine months of this year, while video generated 155.3bn streams – up 59.7% and 15.1% respectively.
This week, Google is revealing several initiatives, including the Insights Engine Project, to help publishers better monetize their content. On Monday, Google announced it was ending the controversial practice of “first click free” policy, which gave users access to content behind paywalls by searching for it.
Co-funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, ARDITO is a project aimed at providing simple tools and services to support SMEs in the creative content sector to find new business ideas through monetising the re-use of their content.
Source: The business case of ARDITO | Aldus – European bookfairs network
Global sales of art works amount to roughly $45 billion a year, but in 2016 only $3.75 billion of that — less than 10 percent of the total — was transacted online, according to the Hiscox Online Art Report, making the art and collectibles trade a laggard in the world of e-commerce.
A big part of the reason for the lack of a more robust online marketplace is the high potential for fraud — already a $6 billion a year problem in the art world — when buying artworks sight-unseen except in digital form. Copies and knockoffs can be passed off as originals, “limited” editions can overstep their limits, certificates of authenticity can forged.
Verisart CEO Robert Norton
Several startups have have launched in recent years to tackle that problem, including Verisart, ascribe, and Tagsmart, by providing artists the means to assert their authorship and issue time-stamped, digitally signed certificates of authenticity (COAs) by registering the information on a blockchain. But online sales have yet to scale using that artist-by-artist, piece-meal approach.
Now, Burbank, Calif.-based Verisart is looking to go the wholesale route through a partner certification program and API for online sellers and galleries. Last week, it announced its first such partnership, with online gallery Avant Arte.
Under the deal, Avant Arte will apply Verisart’s certification standards across all its represented artists and sales of limited edition artworks. Each certificate will be optimized for both physical and digital use with a unique QR code, blockchain timestamp and web address.
Speaking at the RightsTech Summit in New York last week, Verisart CEO Robert Norton said, “As online retailers and galleries look to improve certification standards, we’re seeing increasing demand for blockchain enabled certificates and we’re delighted to work with Avant Arte as our first limited edition print partner.”
Added Avant Arte ATO Nico Veenman, “By partnering with Verisart, we’re applying two factor validation of ownership by combining a physical ownership certificate and a digital certificate on the blockchain including immutable and authorized information about the artwork edition.”
Avant Arte is the first company to use the Verisart’s partner API allowing bulk transfer of data and certificate customization.
(Cover image: Wikimedia Commons)
Facebook is promising to make it easier for content owners to police the social platform for unauthorized and pirated videos — and then either monitor or block them, or potentially make money from them.
Source: Facebook Connects Video Copyright-Flagging System to Third-Party Tools – Variety