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Blockchain Technology Predictions For 2016

With the growing buzz around the Blockchain technology, we have gathered predictions of experts from different branches of the industry, on its future evolution and prospects going forward.

Blockchain and Bitcoin have become mutually inseparable, however Blockchain is much more than just a collection of records for a cryptocurrency. A Blockchain is at its core a ledger of records, which is distributed across different parties. It can only be updated with the consensus of the majority of the participants it is shared with and is inerasable. The beauty of the Blockchain is that its applications go beyond cryptocurrency transactions. 2015 saw a lot of hype around Blockchain and its adoption by the mainstream financial services industry.

Source: CT

Apple-Dubset Deal Marks A Rights-Tech Milestone

DJ_2010Apple Music this week tapped rights-tech developer Dubset Media to manage clearances and royalty payments for DJ mixes and other mashups, opening the way for thousands of hours of user-generated content to be made available legally on the streaming service.

The deal, which relies on Dubset’s proprietary technology for identifying the individual tracks used in extended mixes and making payments to the appropriate rights owners, marks a milestone for electronic dance music (EDM) and other types of derivative work, such as DJ mixes and remixes, which have become hugely popular with music fans but until now have largely been kept off the major streaming services due to the difficulty and complexity of clearing the rights for the dozens of tracks they typically include.

Instead, most EDM and DJ mixes wound up on platforms like SoundCloud, which until recently had no licensing deals in place with music labels or publishers, or on underground streaming services that are less particular about copyrights.

“Our genre has grown hand in hand with the rapid growth of streaming and digital services yet, despite billions of online plays, most of our creators and rights-holders earn very little for their efforts compared to their ‘pop’ peers,” Association of Electronic Music CEO Mark Lawrence told Music Business Worldwide in response to the Dubset announcement. “This is the first move to correct the imbalance.”

Fighting Fraud And Piracy With Blockchain

www.verisart.com-2016-03-24-18-34-07-768x404 Anyone who has ever posted a photograph or original piece of artwork on the internet knows that credit is fleeting. No sooner is it pinned, retweeted or shared then any metadata or watermark linking it to its source is stripped away or simply left behind as it spirals across social media platforms. By the time it reaches the end of the viral chain, even if someone wanted to offer proper attribution that information is all-but impossible to find.

A growing number of entrepreneurs are starting to tackle the issue of digital attribution and authentication, however, by leveraging the Bitcoin blockchain.

This month, New York-based Blockai and Los Angeles-based Verisart went live with new services that allow creators to register their works on the blockchain to create a permanent, indelible record certifying their patrimony and ownership.

The startups join a growing list of blockchain-based authentication services targeting the graphic arts, including Monegraph, ConSensys, ascribe, Stem, Mediachain and others. Just as the blockchain provides an open, self-verifying and decentralized ledger of Bitcoin transactions, it can also be used as a self-verifying database of other types of time-stamped events, such as the registration of a copyright.

The Accidental Blockchain Evangelist

benji.rogersPledgeMusic founder and CEO Benji Rogers did not set out to become the leader of a movement when he posted his now-famous essay last November describing how the blockchain — the technological underpinning of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin — could be used to untangle the notoriously Byzantine world of music licensing and payments.

It was more a thought experiment than a business plan.

But his ideas struck such a chord in the industry that Rogers has been thrust into the unwonted role of leading spokesman for the use of blockchain in the music business.

“I could never have imagined that the article I wrote would have the impact that it has,” Rogers would write a few months later in a follow up post. “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.”

There are many in and around the music industry who would like to try, however.

A New Chapter in Artist Revenue

This week my company, OpenAura, made an announcement that signals the beginning of a new era for the music industry: previously artists got paid for their music, now we are helping them get paid for their images.

Our first customer products have launched, the first royalty checks have been issued, and a new revenue stream is coming alive. I’ve been working towards this goal for years, so I wanted to share why I started the company, and where I think the industry is heading. I’ve been lucky to spend a large part of my life doing something very important to me: helping artists (and those that support them) make a living by helping them reach their audiences.

Source: Medium

David Lowery Talks Lawsuits, Licensing and Free Streaming

David Lowery is feeling positive, three months after he flung the cat into the music-streaming pigeons with his role as the example plaintiff in a proposed class-action lawsuit against Spotify over its publishing licensing.

The $150m lawsuit over the mechanicals element of songwriter royalties was soon joined by a second – a $200m lawsuit – from fellow artist Melissa Ferrick. More followed for other streaming services from musician John Emanuele and his publisher Yesh Music. Meanwhile, Spotify has announced a settlement with the US National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) to license songs and pay songwriters their missing royalties; and journalists have been hastily brushing up on their knowledge of the ins and outs of US copyright law.

Source: MusicAlly

Cooking Vinyl Australia Launches Music Publishing Division, Matthew Donlevy to Lead

Australia’s music publishing sector has a new indie player. Less than three years after opening for business Down Under, Cooking Vinyl Australia, the Australasian division of Martin Goldschmidt’s Cooking Vinyl Group, is launching a music publishing division.

Matthew Donlevy will oversee Cooking Vinyl Publishing Australia, and is tasked with signing and nurturing songwriters from Australia and New Zealand for development both domestically and abroad.

Source: Billboard

Soundstripe Simplifies Music Licensing for Visual Creatives

1457843258331Soundstripe is changing the way visual creatives (filmmakers, marketers, agencies, churches, etc.) access and obtain stock music, sourcing affordable high-quality video production music via their new platform, Soundstripe.com.

Music licensing has been a very complicated matter for many years. From multiple pricing tiers based on usage, to intimidating contracts and publishing agreements, Soundstripe aims to fix all of that.

“We want filmmakers to get in, get their music, and get back to creating,” says Travis Terrell, Co-CEO.

Microsoft Adds Ethereum to Windows Platform For Over 3 Million Developers

Millions of Microsoft developers are now able to build decentralized applications using the Ethereum blockchain thanks to a collaboration between the software giant and ConsenSys, announced today.

By building Ethereum’s Solidity programming language for writing smart contracts directly into Mircosoft’s Visual Studio platform, developers will be able to build, test and deploy decentralized applications, or dapps, within an integrated environment they already know how to use.But don’t think this is a money play for either ConsenSys, or Microsoft, at least not yet.

Source: CoinDesk

Songwriters Strike a Discordant Note Over Control of Their Music

Knowledge@Wharton: Set the backdrop as to how this decree came into play and why the U.S. Justice Department is looking to make this change.

Lawrence Gelburd: Let’s start with copyright. When you’re part of a team that writes a song, or maybe you’re the sole songwriter, you initially have a set of copyrights and there are multiple rights. One is to have the song performed on the radio. There are mechanical license rights. So you own the right to say, “You can make a physical copy,” like a CD or an LP, and sell it. You also have sync license.

So you have the right as the copyright owner to give someone who’s making a film or a motion picture access to use your song legally in conjunction with that picture.

There are also grand rights for theatrical performances and print rights.This copyright that you own is a set of rights, one of which is the right for performing rights organizations like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. They collect money, for example, from terrestrial radio, so that’s their focus. And they have strength in numbers. ASCAP has almost a half-million members, and BMI is quite large as well.

Source: Knowledge@Wharton

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