Will Blockchain Disrupt The Music Industry?

Will blockchain disrupt the music industry? Li Wei When the blockchain is applied to the fan economy, copyright and musician income issues, what will it bring to the music industry? Not long ago, there were rumors that “KuWo Music” would launch a public music chain product. There are rumors that users of this product called "Cold Chain Wallet" will convert their online music activities into music coins, and the issuer will repurchase music coins through invitations from time to time, with a fixed total amount of repurchase. Although this news was quickly refuted by the official, the topic of blockchain has indeed been hotly discussed on the Internet for a long time, and even has the meaning of "the arrow will explode". Well-known musician Gao Xiaosong has previously stated that future music copyright distribution is likely to enter the blockchain era. Based on blockchain technology, we may usher in another major revolution after Internet music. As a "computing technology that uses cryptography to ensure that data on the timeline is open, transparent, and non-tamperable", when it is applied to the fan economy, copyright and musician income realization, what will it bring to the music industry? What's coming? In order to maximize the fan economy, idol tokens are issued through the public chain to build an underlying consumption platform. Fans can use the same exclusive currency globally, including purchasing idol performances, promotional activities and other services, while also reducing the time and economic costs of intermediaries such as social media and integrated systems. So this is essentially a new possibility of using blockchain technology to maximize the fan economy. Currently, South Korea, as one of the countries in the world that is more enthusiastic about blockchain technology, has launched the first blockchain application project to provide a universal payment method for entertainment and business life - the Korean ENT platform. The platform was launched for Korean women in February this year. The popular singing group "T-ara" issued T-ara coins.

T-ara coin was tested internally in April 2018 and is used in all-round payment scenarios for celebrities. It is understood that the ENT project aims to "allow fans to have better access to their idols, thereby stabilizing and enhancing fan stickiness, expanding the number of fans, and achieving better monetization." Therefore, against the background of the strong export of Korean entertainment industry to the world, we are expected to see the birth of a new idol ecosystem based on blockchain technology in South Korea. In contrast, in China, not long ago, the "Blockchain Fans Support Group" released a so-called digital currency "TFBC" exclusive to fans of idol groups. But unlike the Korean ENT platform, this event is only based on the application of the Ethereum Virtual Machine and does not have any main chain plan. At the same time, he conveyed the message to fans that "it may be listed in the future, and more funds will enter the market, allowing TFBC to maintain some people buying and selling like stocks." This behavior, which is tantamount to harvesting the IQ tax from fans, was quickly recognized as an ICO behavior strictly prohibited by domestic regulatory authorities (a way for blockchain companies to obtain financing by creating digital currencies). Fengjun issued a timely statement that day to distance himself from the project. Nearly 50,000 people have participated in the platform. Although it faces high-pressure supervision of ICOs by domestic regulatory authorities, this does not prevent the virtual currency market from continuing to heat up. This also confirms that the area The business opportunities generated by the combination of blockchain and entertainment products solve the problem of digital music copyright management. In an era when musicians and music brands are booming, copyright ownership and royalty payment have become difficult problems between musicians and music platforms.

To solve the problem of digital music copyright management, copyright needs to be tracked. The principle of using blockchain technology to implement copyright tracking is to verify content ownership through timestamps. In other words, the network peer-to-peer database it creates can register, identify and track the online distribution of musical works, and clarify the specific ownership information of the works, thereby ensuring that musicians receive corresponding royalties at every step. . The world's largest music streaming platform acquired a blockchain startup last year in an attempt to use blockchain technology to solve copyright and royalty issues. By providing open source peer-to-peer databases and protocols, creators can associate their identities with their works, thereby ensuring that all songs can be traced back to the creator and copyright holder information, and using reasonable means to pay copyright fees, which can also alleviate conflicts. Between streaming media platforms and copyright holders. This move sends a positive signal to the future development of the music streaming industry: streaming music platforms can resolve long-standing copyright and royalty disputes through databases built on blockchain technology. At the same time, this good news will also attract more creators to settle in. In addition, Vydia, a digital rights management and monetization startup with more than 200,000 musician customers around the world, also completed a $7 million Series A round of financing at the beginning of the year; MIT Media Lab collaborated with Berklee College of Music on a music blockchain application The project will be put into use immediately. This large-scale project, involving the three major copyright companies Intel, is an important turning point for large-scale promotion and use.

Helping musicians increase their income Generally speaking, the release of music works needs to go through three levels of platforms before it can finally reach the hands of users: lyrics and music copyright agents, recording copyright owners, and music playback platforms. Similarly, when the user's payment is returned to the creator, it still has to go through these three-level platforms. At present, copyright operations in the industry usually adopt a guaranteed sharing model, and the intermediate three-level processes are not transparent, resulting in a large part of the profits not reaching the hands of the creators. Blockchain technology enables peer-to-peer transactions between creators and audiences. That is, the copyright owner of the work can save many intermediate links, directly distribute a song on the blockchain and obtain profits. Compared with the traditional business model, this technical method of building a direct channel bridge between musicians and audiences is conducive to the creation and promotion of musicians' works, and is especially friendly to niche independent musicians. For the application of blockchain technology, "decentralization" is one of the important issues, which to a large extent solves the pain point of how musicians can increase their income. Based on the "decentralized" thinking of blockchain, the music platform Voise has become the first platform in the world to promise that artists will receive 100% of the sales revenue of their works. After the project went online, it attracted a large number of artists and ordinary users. Although it has not yet shared profits with musicians, it has established a unique profit model: users pay to obtain platform exposure for their works, similar to Baidu and Google bidding rankings; through digital currency exchange A small transaction fee is charged for exchange; by launching legal currency transactions, ordinary musicians and enthusiasts who have not yet accepted the use of digital currency are encouraged to enjoy platform services and a small handling fee is charged; it also provides paid theme packaging services for musicians to create their own images.

Although many industry leaders have more or less recognized the application of blockchain, most investors still have a wait-and-see attitude towards it. In addition to the lack of a solid mass base, it is also crucial for the industry to come up with an effective solution to the cost of using this technology. The massive distributed database synchronization of blockchain technology has extremely high requirements on data computing, Internet and storage capabilities. The huge costs of network facility upgrades and innovations, as well as the huge workload in the actual operation phase, will also have an impact on the blockchain. The implementation of chain technology poses greater challenges. Therefore, this also brings a new question: Is it worth spending so much money to build a blockchain? The industry’s high expectations for blockchain are essentially a vision to improve industry unfairness and improve the optimal allocation of resources. From this perspective, the blockchain platform does have great development prospects and space. But what is certain is that once blockchain is widely used, it will become a powerful force that subverts the existing music industry structure, and will also have a profound impact on many links in the industry chain. However, until this day comes, in addition to continuing to learn and research blockchain, there is no need to blindly fall into unknown technical myths. -End of full text-

标签： #Music #Musician #Music Copyright #Drama #Japanese Movie