Music NFTs: answering industry questions

Last Wednesday, Alex Lopez (CEO @ Soundpickr) was a panelist at the Production Music Association’s music conference in LA. During the panel, a number of questions came up that we thought need a detailed answer.

Today’s post is about that — answering questions to help music execs, rights holders and anyone in the music business, to feel more confident about entering a new dimension for music.

“Does it makes sense for publishers to get into NFTs?”

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is absolutely yes.

In all seriousness, for any rightsholders & rights managers, it’s important to know that NFTs are not just about profile pictures (PFP). We encourage publishers, labels — even PROs, to make a move towards web3.

As explained in last week’s post, we’ve been working on a new music metadata standard that will be released in October. This will simplify the transition for rights managers & rightsholders into NFTs and get the benefits from the underlying technology that (we believe) will change how we understand music.

We’re all up for NFTs and most of our team are active NFT collectors. However, as we said in previous posts, the music industry needs a bigger change than just selling collectible images & songs. That’s why we’re working to change the royalty collection & distribution processes.

Publishers, this is definitely your space.

“I’m concerned about the bad press NFTs get regarding their environmental impact”

This is a valid concern. We should all be aware of how we consume products & services and the impact they have in the environment.

You’ve likely heard the environmental concerns against crypto that it has an outsized carbon footprint. It’s a valid concern and we all should all be environmentally responsible and take into account the carbon cost of supporting all our products and services. Here’s our key principle to keep top of mind i .e., “Do Your Own Research (DYOR …)

Take Solana, for example. The total Solana network emissions were 2,976 tonne CO2 in 2022. Comparing it to Spotify’s 353,054 tonnes CO2, NFTs created with Solana consumed a total of 100+ times less than Spotify alone. As professionals who care about the digital carbon footprint, we based Soundpickr’s initial tech on Solana.

We encourage you to DYOR. But if you’re concerned about emissions, creating NFTs will not be the worst thing your music will do for the environment.

“What if I don’t have a release that can work well with an NFT drop?”

As explained at the top of the post, there are many different ways to get into NFTs. Selling collectible items to fans is a good way to start and it can help with the promotion of a new album (check what Muse did for the promo of “Will of the People”. Smashed it!).

However, we believe in NFT technology more than in selling NFTs. Let’s unhook the technology from the product.

NFT technology offers a new opportunity to resolve legacy issues within music — one of them being slow reporting & royalty distribution. Reproducing music in the metaverse is a new way of exploiting records that can open the web3 door for your catalogue without having to spend all the time and effort required for a proper mint.

So, if you are not able to figure out how to build a NFT campaign that can fit a future release, you can get into NFTs by partnering up with a company dedicated to collecting royalties from the metaverse with transparent reports and immediate payouts (shameless plug, indeed).

Where can you get the best of us?

Twitter: For regular updates, data, interviews (Twitter spaces twice a week)
https://twitter.com/soundpickr

Reddit: In-depth discussions, music conversations
https://www.reddit.com/user/soundpickr

Blog: General music industry analysis & music NFT insights
https://blog.soundpickr.com/blog/

Medium: Regular & detailed updates about Soundpickr
https://soundpickr.medium.com/

Discord: For community and support queries
https://discord.gg/4ByPgFeEYw