Real-time music payments
We’ve been talking about this for a while and if you read last week’s post, you’ll have seen real-time music royalties are one of the three top opportunities we see for music in web3.
The TL;DR is that we believe NFT technology can completely revolutionise the way musicians receive their music royalties: in a fast, transparent and trustless manner.
“Yeah, right. You’re clearly biased” — would our now regular skeptical reader think.
Well, today, we’ll be dissecting this concept, give an overview of the existing system, how web3 tech can help resolve it, and why we’re on the way to completely change how musicians get paid.
The current reality of music payments
We’ve all sung the song of the starving artist… it sounds like this: “There’s no money in music”, “you should have a plan B as you won’t make any money as an artist”, “music success is for the few, not the many”, and so on.
It’s true, it is hard to make it as a music maker. Making music & distributing it to the public is very accessible and anybody can do it from the comfort of their homes. It’s a reality now more than ever for someone to produce a product as versatile as music and sell it (in the form of streaming, downloads…) to a wide audience.
If we call music a product — why is it so hard to generate revenue? If you were to sell products on your e-commerce website, you wouldn’t have the same issue (correct us if we’re wrong). When users sell products, the money goes straight to their bank account after the transaction is completed (minus marketplace charges, card processing… you know how it goes).
With music it’s not that simple. When someone uses/buys/streams songs, there’s a very long and slow process to report, collect and distribute those payments. More on royalties in upcoming posts.
Web3 to the rescue
This new technology is swamped by confusion, false claims and complaints like “Blockchain is terrible for the environment!”, “It’s all a ponzi scheme”, “Criminals use this technology for money laundry”.
If there is one thing crypto critics & superfans agree on, it’s that this new tech will accelerate and amplify payments to creators.
As mentioned earlier, the underlying condition of a musicians usual poverty is not the competitiveness of the industry but frankly, the complexity of getting paid.
For that reason, we’re strong believers in how web3 can help us change this and make sure music rightsholders get paid for their work (nearly) in real time. This also opens the door to a trustless system where information can be available to all and identify who gets paid what.
On a mission to change music royalties forever
Ever since we announced our refined vision, we’ve received praise from companies who used to criticise us. Not just that, we’ve been gaining new partners and both the industry & music makers seem to love it.
We’ve been working on proprietary technology that allows us to identify, collect and distribute revenue generated from the use of music in web3.
Buying a music NFT doesn’t necessarily give holders the right to use the songs as they please (more on that soon), so we’re making it easier for virtual environments to use music with permission, by changing the industry and making it more transparent, faster, more efficient, and enable musicians to profit and be paid without friction.
In the next few days, we’ll be sharing a brand new metadata resource to allow anybody creating music in web3 to future-proof their music and build opportunities in web3 for their music other than selling digital assets (NFTs).
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
