MUSIC INDUSTRY WEB 2 ?WEB 3: UNCOVERING THE FUTURE

Written in July 2022.

The content of this article may be subject to improvements based on novel instances and ideas contained herein.

FOREWORD

First and foremost, I would like to give a shout out to everyone who responded to my first article. Thank you so very much; I appreciate everyone’s time. So, the main idea behind this music paper was to:

1. Not get super technical, and try not to get too boring while being aware of emotional traps. I am ultimately in the artist's corner and all that it entails.?
2. Sum up an overall view of the traditional music space (without preaching to the choir too much, many great articles cover all the usual suspects in detail).
3. Display a good assessment of what’s relevant and new in the WEB3 music space today, which is overwhelmingly and remains mostly unknown to the masses.
4. Not to overthink (I am telling myself that btw lol), but that's what I've always loved about music, the "human mistakes" themselves. Without them, there is no art; there's no life. It's stale, dead. Evolution is but an infinite movement, waves, and sounds.

Most of this stuff is not in the books, and I learn every day from incredibly smart people, and am grateful for the WEB3 community.

Nothing here represents any financial or any other kind of advice.?

INVITATION

It would be great if allowed to have great conversations with all the projects mentioned herein to get some in-depth perspectives and stir more awareness about these technologies, and, soon, help onboard more awesome creators, builders, and investors to the WEB3 music space. It's an incredibly vast subject, so if?I've missed anything, please post about it in the comments section, and we’ll get on it straight away, for collaborative growth is community.?

Without further due,

INTRO

Music is EVERYWHERE. We consume it more voraciously than ever, and every day, many fresh chances arise for artists. But while everything in the music business grows unabatedly, the bitter truth is that the average professional musician earns a gross wage of $30,200 per year, according to estimates. In 2022, the typical yearly American salary is $53,490.?

Up to this point, artists still receive a pittance of a cent each stream, of which a very small percentage is, in turn, distributed to producers and songwriters, who could be described as the hemoglobin in the bloodstream of an entire economy.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that the music industry, to this day, represents one of the most intricate regulatory and legal schemes, practically impossible to navigate without the aid of experts.?

Let’s quickly go through the URGENT problems.?

WEB 2 MUSIC?

THE URGENT PROBLEMS?

TICKETING

Well-known musicians today sometimes have trouble filling out performances due to ticket scalpers who roam unregulated, bot-purchasing of most tickets (the famous “we sold out the arena in 10 minutes”), reselling them for crazy prices, hence turning away potential concert-goers. These activities detract goers from the experience on both sides, for scalpers keep all the profit, leaving venues half-full. Emerging artists struggle to locate venues where they can perform, receive unfair compensation, deal with overall intolerable working conditions, and most of the time have to hear promoters citing their visibility as justification.?

RADIO?

The same justification applies, by law, to radio play in the US (alongside North Korea, Iran, and China) which does not pay a single cent of performance royalties towards the masters' thanks to the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) - lobbying politics at its best. Radio is dominated by the top 0.1% of artists (backed by major labels) with the same songs on rotation, a model which has also seeped into social media algorithms trained to favor posts that feature top trending tracks.?

SOCIAL MEDIA (SM)

SM prioritizes visual content as the day-to-day primary force for fan engagement, with none of the platforms strictly music-focused. Therefore, accessing the exact revenue/percentage artists get from plays generated on each social platform is still murky. Until now, if you are self-published, you were better off having a music publishing admin.

SM is also littered with bots (Musk vs. Twitter), just like the ticket scalping problem. The vicious circle loops back with the cancerous catchphrase "you have to beat the algorithm" - is that even possible? Not only in the music industry but also bots fabricate NFT fans, active (WEB3) gamers, Spotify plays, and everything else in between. A lot of smoke and mirrors for builders, users, and investors to deal with indeed.?

WEB3 SM?potential is immense, but the overall lack of understanding of the culture, KYC restrictions, regulations, and mainstream misinformation, among many other reasons, ends up holding back short-term adoption, thus Meta’s recent Metaverse pivot, which was unexpected, let's leave it at that.

On the creator’s side, SM is still struggling to build fun, collaborative tools, and it's hard to make any kind of living with a power law that (similar to streaming) still sees the top 1% commanding the majority of revenue on most platforms.?

Below there’s a quick breakdown of the leading social platforms, artists' earnings models, and relevant moves in the creator/music industry.?

Facebook

From billions of dollars generated from content sharing, Facebook pays an average of $.0007 - $0.004 per stream, depending on the country where the plays are generated. SongTrust helps you track when someone else uses your song in one of their videos, so you can get paid. Following Zuckerberg’s “pivot to audio” campaign with recent products like “Soundbites” and big promises like the $1 billion Meta for Creators fund, Meta claims that Live Audio Rooms pays (established) artists an average of $10k to $50k, rivaling other live audio platforms like Clubhouse. Meta, the parent company behind Facebook, posted annual revenue of $33.5 billion, 97% of which was generated from ad revenue.

Instagram

If your post is not sponsored (pay-to-play), most likely, less than 20% of your followers will see your post hence anyone under 10k+ followers (which is no small feat if done organically) generates zero revenue. The vast Spark AR creator community also gets stung by Meta’s rules. AR filters cannot be monetized by default, and since the rumors are valid, IG has just announced its first NFT integration. Collectors will be empowered to post NFTs they’ve created or own on IG. Ethereum and Polygon are supported, with promises for Solana and Flow underway.

Twitter

To use an NFT as a profile picture on Twitter, you'll need to be a Twitter Blue paid subscriber, which costs $3 a month in the United States. Pretty lame! While one could say Twitter is one of the most active social platforms for crypto users and NFT collectors, the platform does little to nothing for content creators, who are better off growing their fanbase elsewhere as Twitter has turned, for the most part, into a bot war. The platform still makes ~ 90% of its revenue from selling ad spaces to advertisers.?

Reddit

There are over 30 million users in the r/Music community on Reddit, and it features video shares and some activity. At best, r/Music exists simply for fun and isn’t entirely directed at inspiring or stirring creativity, with little expression overall. The platform is also not interactive enough and lacks some exciting metrics to make a complete community.?

TikTok

TikTok is at the forefront of new music discovery alongside playlists today with its great appeal to Gen Z and also has unmatched AI prowess (watch the eyebrows frown). TikTok royalties are based on share rather than viewing metrics ~ $0.030 per video shared with your music. Released in beta last year, the music marketing and distribution service called SoundOn allows musicians to upload songs directly to the app and receive royalties for plays managed through a designated artists' platform, which also includes analytical tools to help artists leverage virality (pay-to-play).?

Twitch?

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, Twitch’s Music category volume 4x’d in a matter of months in 2020. Since then, Twitch has closed incentive-driven licensing and strategic partnership deals with Warner Music Group and the US publishing body, the NMPA. For the first time, the famous “earnings leak” of 2021 let outsiders cross-reference some data with direct platform earnings. In reality, like TikTok, Twitch represents a whole separate economy as their top earning artists have practically zero monthly listeners on Spotify/Apple Music, and it would be reductive to categorize their content solely as music streams anyway.?

Snapchat?

Snapchat’s parent company Snap Inc has signed music licensing deals with Warner Music Group, Warner Chappell, Universal Music Publishing, Merlin, and several members of the the NMPA. Independent artists can use the Voisey app to create original music. They can also use Snap’s partner DistroKid, linked to streaming platforms. Just like Meta's Spark AR, Snap Inc does not allow Snap AR filters to be monetized.

STREAMING & YOUTUBE?

There are ample articles online on the subject. Nevertheless, music streaming platforms are accused of working with complex compensation arrangements, perplexing artists, lawyers, and rights holders. Although it’s worth mentioning some premium-only services have made a few inroads, some of the ad-supported services have steadfastly resisted.?

Bot-plays are also an unspeakable taboo, for these platforms, some more than others, are still considered the “industry standard” for success metrics of any given artist, alongside Youtube. Just like the radio’s unfair rule of conduct, the so-called official playlists are also controlled by a few curators that are mainly aligned with the big players.?

Considering all the huge fights for fairer compensation, music streaming platforms continue to present themselves as rigid. Cloudy regulations and the constant run-around by the powers that be have hardened their roots. It is unlikely that any of them will increase music streaming royalty fees anytime soon, at least not within the current system.

Similar to Facebook and Instagram, YouTube Music’s payout for musicians depends on geo-location where the streams and plays are coming from, but for a video with 1 million views, the average pay falls between $2,000 and $3,000 if you use ads on your videos. YouTube also keeps ~30% of all revenue generated from live super-chats.??

Record Labels

Following their justification for owning 100% of masters' rights (indefinitely in some cases), the artist is solely accountable for their work considering a traditional major label setup. In a perfect scenario, the A&R and label team will work closely with the artist’s management team offloading the work either in-house or by hiring/leveraging third-party services: producers, mixing engineers, social-media experts, publicists, booking agencies, promoters, radio department and so on. Therefore it is almost impossible for indie artists to manage all these moving parts alone with zero cash, no revenue from streaming, inexistent album sales, and live performances which hardly break even. With no time to dedicate to their craft, in the best-case scenario, their art will suffer.?

Music Crowdfunding

ArtistShare is documented as being the first crowdfunding music website, followed by generic players in the space Go Fund Me, Kickstarter & Patreon. Many music crowdfunding projects aren’t around anymore, such as PledgeMusic and Sellaband. MusicFund has a more straightforward model that helps artists get fast cash for their music while retaining copyrights and creative control.

Music Publishing Admins

As it’s been historically difficult to collect mechanical royalties as an independent artist, the music publishing admin plays the role of the distributor of the global performing rights and mechanical royalties to ensure your compositions are appropriately registered. They also help with collecting royalties wherever the music is performed or sold, such as Sentric or Songtrust, serving as global publishing administrators for independent artists (with many partners such as Distrokid). Doing this makes getting the exact due royalties easier while offering educational resources for music artists. Some distributors, such as CD Baby or TuneCore, offer built-in premium music publishing admin services.

Payments?

For various reasons, musicians struggle to receive their income timely, and this is due to the countless administrators who must rubber-stamp every dollar bill that leaves record labels. These administrators include publishing companies, booking agencies, and so forth, such as per diems, advance cheques, and tour cheques (360 deal means all the cheques). The other half is controlled mainly by performing rights organizations, PROs (mainly ASCAP/BMI in the US), and SoundExchange (also in the US, the organ which collects non-terrestrial performance royalties).

Synchronization License (Sync)?

This Neptunian world is vast, with many companies providing sync services. The best space for prolific composers and producers, but it's still very hard to understand and navigate well. More than ever, video games can’t live without great music. Sync deals on that side of the industry don’t necessarily obey any sort of formula, but since the Guitar Hero boom, the most common is fixed pay and zero royalties. With the birth of WEB3 gaming and metaverse experiences, these old models ought to change.?

Take a deep breath…

It’s not worth carrying any negativity going forward, for sustainable change only happens when aligned with inclusion, collaboration, and as much leveled the playing field as possible, seamlessly and trustlessly conducted by the algorithmic gods. Though that sounds like a fairy tale from a faraway galaxy, there are incredibly smart people who not only believe in the WEB3 music utopia but are also giving their all at this moment to see it materialize.

NFTs: The New Normal?

NFTs give artists far more control over their music and careers. Streaming numbers and their origin can be easily tracked, and successful drops can play the role of the so-called “advances,” giving the artist the immediate cash flow necessary to fund all the costs required to keep their career growth.?

The dynamics between fans and artists have entirely changed. Fans can now receive a share of the album's royalties, transforming their role from fans to investors. By cutting out the label's role of financier, artists keep far more revenue for themselves and form a closer relationship with their fans, given the entry-point ($) and (mobile) payment accessibility.?

Live music event tickets might also be offered as NFTs, with a built-in pre-approval system, placing restrictions on quantity, where, and how much they can be resold for. On marketplaces, an agreed-upon percentage of the profit from ticket resales might be automatically sent to the musician or venue, further discouraging scalpers, for resellers can only profit so much. Attendees may also be required to show their genuine NFT tickets.

Therefore, with many other solutions yet to be unfolded, WEB3 MUSIC was born to bring back balance to the force.?

WEB 3 MUSIC

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up familiar with it.”

― Max Planck

The current music system’s obituary is inevitable. Blockchain technology has the ability to provide solutions to the urgent problems discussed earlier. Despite comparatively little adoption so far, many artists have become proponents of blockchain-based distributed ledger technology, righteously claiming that it can effectively release music, get rid of expensive middlemen, streamline payments, prevent ticket scalping, establish a point of origin for music creators, strengthen their bond with their fans, and so forth, in short, build a more just, open and inclusive system.?

Quick Disclaimer

The purpose of this second part was to create a hit-list of the most relevant projects in each category of the vast world of MUSIC NFTS and, most importantly, to remain neutral and quickly convey each project's core idea in fast, summarized fashion so that the reader can experience a quick simulation of multiple angles within the entire space.

CATEGORIES?

ROYALTIES??

(Quick obs: bear in mind that purchasing stakes in NFT music royalties does not mean you own the song)

Vezt (Ethereum)

Vezt runs a marketplace for music rights that enables fans to more directly support the musicians, composers, songwriters, and producers in exchange for royalties of their preferred records, collecting royalties from record labels, publishers, and PROs on behalf of the fans, then tracking those revenues using its blockchain technology. Through an Initial Song Offering (ISO), Vezt's digital marketplace enables musicians to split a portion of a song's earnings for royalty-based financing. The day and time that the royalty rights will be made public are specified in the ISO, which increases public knowledge, demand, and opportunities for the artist and each specific ISO.

Blockpool (Blockpool)

A blockchain startup called Blockpool creates customized code, offers consulting services, and helps artists integrate blockchain technology into their entire production, distribution, and management processes. In addition to its work in other sectors, Blockpool creates smart music contracts and digital tokens and manages licensing and intellectual property rights for the music sector. As an illustration, Blockpool and One Little Indian collaborated to release Bjork's Utopia album. Blockpool uses blockchain to administer and distribute royalties and provides incentives for digital currency.

MediaChain (Ethereum)

A peer-to-peer blockchain database called MediaChain enables users to exchange information between various apps and organizations. In addition to organizing open-source data by giving each piece of data a distinct identity, MediaChain draughts smart contracts with musicians that specify their royalties conditions.?Spotify bought MediaChain in 2017 to help resolve royalty payments and rights holder disputes.

Fanvestory?

Fanvestory is following suit by allowing fans to get involved in musician’s careers, mostly up-and-comers at the moment, with almost all of them appearing to be Estonian musical acts. The project claims that a couple of artists have raised a few thousand euros for projects.

Royalty Exchange (Ethereum)

Royalty Exchange offers debt-free funding to creators. The platform matches creators seeking funding with investors seeking catalogs. While creators raise money for their careers without having to worry about paying anyone in the future, investors can hold and trade their rights and assets to yield a minimum of 10% due to the verification and vetting system created by the platform. Artists can simply sign-up on the platform, present their work and get access to instant offers.

Songvest?

SongVest operates similarly to Royalty Exchange, with an online platform for auctioning music royalties and other royalty assets on a centralized marketplace where holders can sell their future payments to investors. Ever since 2021, it has been focused on NFTs.

Opulous (Ethereum)

Opulous allows you to buy NFTs as shares in the music. Each NFT receives a portion of artists' royalties and other rights. The platform incentivizes investing in NFTs before the music or star hits the limelight. Opulous’s model works like a launchpad, and holders of these NFTs can trade them on an exchange, hodl, or loan them to others and earn interest.

SoundHouse?

SoundHouse buys up primarily streaming royalties, the ones they consider early. According to one report, SoundHouse recently spent upwards of $40 million to acquire the streaming royalties belonging to a slew of artists and thousands of songs. One sentence on the company’s website takes me back to the all-time startup accelerator mantra: “we do one thing, and we do it with excellence.” Atm, these investment opportunities are not available to the general public.?

BandRoyalty (Ethereum)

BandRoyalty is signed with SonyMusic / TheOrchid as the distributor of its new music label, BANDMusicChain records. The platform features a 3-token (RYLT, BR-NFTS, and BSTAGE) system with four different staking pools and five sub-platforms. Fans can also collaborate with artists to launch music labels run by fans on the platform. BR-NFTs are music connected, allowing holders to earn and stake these NFTs on the platform. The platform holds the right to over 50 songs from A-list artists like Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake. They plan to reward users with 50% of artists' royalty revenues in the governance token.

Other WEB3 music royalties platform shoutout: Voise, Musicoin, SounDAC.

STREAMING

Audius (Ethereum)

Audius uses on-chain metrics, similar to a decentralized SoundCloud, except that musicians are compensated a few seconds after their music is streamed. Musicians determine how much fans should pay to stream their music, a much more personal approach. As a result, listeners only pay for the music they hear, one of the significant problems caused by the revenue pool models in traditional streaming. Fans may also crowdfund their favorite musicians, so they can cover their production and marketing costs after releasing a few teasers. In exchange for donations to the artist's crowdfund, fans can get a portion of earnings from a forthcoming album or track, with ten percent of total revenue as ongoing token distribution to the most active participants.

Rhythm (Binance Chain)

Rhythm is a DeFi platform powering decentralized music streaming by rewarding users in NFTs and platform tokens. The platform’s catalog now has up to 100M tracks, and the partner artists get paid in Rhythm tokens. The desktop browser add-on allows artists to earn extra rewards than the ordinary premium paid by non-Rhythm subscribers on Youtube. Subscription to the platform is via fiat and Rhythm tokens, while 25% of fiat transactions are used to boost liquidity pools monthly. On Rhythm, artists fund their partnership program and get paid based on the number of streams accrued by their music on the platform.

PopNetwork (Ethereum)

By implementing the ZK algorithm, PopNetwork upholds the set standard on the blockchain, giving control to users while ensuring anonymity. Fans and creators on the network can earn in many ways, such as node running, content creation, and development. Creators on the platform cut across A-list stars, newbie streamers, and underserved creators.?

Viberate (Ethereum)

Viberate is a music data analytics platform for labels, A&Rs, managers, agents, and other industry professionals, focusing on streaming, airplay and social media monitoring, professional charts, artist comparison, industry trends, audience demographics, and smart talent discovery, tracking overall online performance and radio airplay across 24,000 radio stations worldwide. All data is presented on intuitive, customizable, interactive charts that can be tweaked according to user preference. Viberate also has a vibrant blog on Medium. It is a paid service with a token structure.

Rocki (Binance Smart Chain)

Rocki helps artists earn from their art by building a large user base of fans, while fans can access the platform’s free streaming services. Users can vote on their favorite NFTs and earn rewards by voting for their favorite artists, while artists create, market, and earn royalties for their work. The utility tokens incentivize participation, speculation, creation, and transfer of value on the platform. The platform currently features about 45k music tracks from 9k independent artists.

Smart Music (Binance Smart Chain)

SmartMusic features various earning mechanics, different staking and mining options, featuring a variety of activities, events, and so forth. The platform distributes rewards to its participants in its native $MUSIC, allowing fans to earn tokens by listening to music while helping to find and launch new artists.

Other WEB3 music streaming platforms shoutout: Resonate, Joox.

DISTRIBUTION

Nina (Solana)

Nina users may listen to all the music published on the platform for free. The platform has a feature that allows artists who post music to release a limited number of tokens that listeners may buy for exclusive perks. These perks include early access to the album, meet & greets, token-gated events on Discord, and so forth. One interesting fact is that Nina purposely avoids crypto jargon (the magic sigil "NFT" does not even appear anywhere on the website) to encourage those new to crypto. Nina allows you to pay for music using the USDC stablecoin, which could be a significant step.

BeatzCoin (Tron)

BeatzCoin is the crypto token of VibraVid created on the Tron network, and VibraVid is a music and video ecosystem decentralized application for web and mobile users that offers an experience similar to YouTube, Spotify, and SoundCloud in one place. The platform forked the Bittorrent protocol. The native token can only be purchased on the platform, which helps to promote the BeatzCoin community.?

SoundCoin (Binance Smart Chain)

SoundCoin is a multi-chain liquidity protocol built to run smart contracts. The platform manages a range of dApps such as Sound App, Sound Radio, and the Sound NFT marketplace. It promises its users 2% for life on revenue generated from all products developed by the platform, exclusive in-person events, and NFT rewards for token holders.

Other WEB3 music distribution platforms shoutouts: Opus and XFinite.

MARKETPLACES??

LimeWire (Algorand)

Partnered with UMG, LimeWire allows music fans to trade a wide range of music-related assets, limited edition releases, unreleased demos, graphical artworks, digital merchandise, backstage content, and exclusive live versions, with an open goal of on-boarding a million users in its first year by partnering with mainstream music acts.

BitSong (Ethereum)

BitSong brings artists, managers, fans, and labels together in one ecosystem. It features a music NFT marketplace, ticket sales, merchandise, and pools. Artists on BitSong can use the fan token $BTSG to create compelling engagement offers like loyalty points and VIP rewards and share their success with loyal fans. The fan tokens also give the artist the freedom to grow and lead the creative process. The platform also features an online music player with a complete set of music metadata on the blockchain in real-time.

OneOf (Tezos/Polygon)

With a label-wide partnership with Warner Music Group (WMG), Quincy Jones-backed eco-friendly music NFT platform OneOf connects fans and collectors to their favorite music artists, athletes, and lifestyle brands. Registered users can buy NFTs with their credit or debit card, granting them access to VIP tickets, signed merch, IRL experiences, etc. OneOf NFTs also empowers female creators, and the platform donates a portion of the proceeds to charity.

PopEx (Polkadot)

Carbon Pledged (PopEx donates a percentage of every NFT sale to carbon reduction) PopEx is a decentralized NFT marketplace enabling creators to create freely without the fear that their content or hosting platform may be taken down for any given reason. The artist can simply get on the platform and register, brand their profiles, create their NFTs by uploading the art in simple formats such as jpeg, gif, or png, and list the NFT for sale. The platform ensures security and prevents spamming by registering only verified artists.

Releap (Solana)

Releap lets its users create, discover, and collect music. The platform features a studio where artists can mint their own NFTs and control the release and distribution of their music, and an NFT marketplace. Artists can create tiered circles to prioritize dedicated fans on exclusive releases. The Releap Community Contributor Program on-boards community members focused on design, content creation, moderation, localization (different languages), ideation, and feedback.

SuperNFT (Ethereum)

The project was established by a partnership between Superfly, Velvet Sea Ventures (SVF), and Tom Brady's Autograph. Owners of these NFTs will have a stake on the platform's governance which includes choosing lineup merchandise locations and more. Designed by artist Donte Neal, the NFTs were created to capture a universal symbol of celebration.

Other WEB3 music marketplaces shoutouts: MusicY, Serenade, Fanfare, Audeme and Fantiger.

METAVERSE LIVE MUSIC

ConcertVR (Ethereum)

ConcertVR offers live musical concert experiences to users. A blockchain-based marketplace for the in-demand music concert experience, the platform allows users to attend full-length music concerts anywhere on their smartphones. Content VR also allows users access tickets to a growing catalog of music content.

AnimalConcerts (Ethereum)

AnimalConcerts enables upcoming artists to deliver fan experiences in the metaverse. The platform works with artists to create and customize NFTs for a better fan experience. Concerts organized by the platform are streamed in 2D and 3D in the metaverse. The platform's native token, $ANML?incentivizes fans and creators.

WaveXR

WaveXR is an interactive virtual concert platform providing live performances of A-list and upcoming artists. It combines streaming technology with gaming and VR-based entertainment to make global music concerts that can be streamed across social media.

LIVE MUSIC TICKETING?

YellowHeart (Ethereum)

Yellow heart is a decentralized NFT marketplace that provides music and entertainment ticketing solutions. It is an NFT ticketing project that connects artists with their fans by allowing them to issue exclusive offers and access to events for NFT holders on the platform. Using blockchain technology, the platform verifies authenticity, enables artists and teams to share in secondary sales, removes duplication, and enables access to selected venues.?

SYNC/LICENSING?

Dequency (Ethereum)

With $4.5m in funding earlier this year to launch its sync marketplace, Dequency claims to be “the only option for on-chain sync licensing of blockchain-native content” looking to add music to its catalog from music companies and musicians who control both the recording and publishing rights for tracks focused on licensing music for NFTs, games and metaverse projects.??

SphereTrax?

The startup founded by composer Sefi Carmel will be licensing music to traditional sync customers (film, TV, ads, games, etc.) but also for VR, AR, and XR clients, with a feature where customers can purchase tracks as NFTs. It’s planning to launch later this year.

SOCIAL ACTIVISM?

PUBLICPRESSURE?(Polkadot)

PublicPressure is a decentralized channel dedicated to NFT music, mainly Hip hop, Punk and Electronic music, and LGBTQ, carrying the ethos of reclaiming the youth subculture with NFT music, subcultures, and youth trends. Early Sub Pop, alternative/indie label vibes are much needed in the space.?

MUSIC CREATION?

Arpeggi Studio (Ethereum)

Arpeggi Studio is the world's first on-chain music composition platform. Arpeggi's offering is a simple on-chain music production and editing software that allows musicians to produce and then mint their music as NFTs within a single application. Arpeggi then saves an immutable copy of each new music an artist releases on the blockchain. Music tracks are saved in midi, which has solved the problem of storing large files on a blockchain, requiring just 256 bytes. Arpeggi is presently under beta testing.?

EMPOWERMENT & EDUCATION

Ape In Records (Ethereum)

Ape in Records exists to support the next generation of upcoming music artists, songwriters, producers, and recording initiatives with the native AIR token through education, music studio support, and more. The platform aims to provide seamless music migration from WEB2 to WEB3 while sponsoring their activities with the token and building multiple business models to sustain the token economy. At the time of writing, the platform has distributed over $800,0000 in non-recoupable funds.?

Label Foundation (Ethereum)

Label is a blockchain-based NFT copyright fee-sharing platform that removes the barriers to content production, investment, and creation through education and empowerment in a decentralized ecosystem that allocates value in their native token $LBL. The platform has since partnered with big names in the industry like Opentrack, a South Korean-based music educational platform that hosts more than 200 artists. It is a place where instructors, investors, distribution platforms, and learners can come together to coexist and thrive.?

SOCIALFI?

GEOJAM (Ethereum)

Geojam claims to be a creator economy of the future that redirects the flow of incentives back into the hands of the creators and users themselves. Content operators are the backbone of Geojam’s social platform, which will validate content reports, engagement, and trends. Nodes will store reporting and engagement metadata to feed AI/ML within the ecosystem, generating a decentralized and optimized content feed. Validation power and rewards assigned to the node vary with the number of $JAM held.?

Other WEB3 socioFi projects shoutout: SoundBOX.

GENERATIVE MUSIC?

Audioglyphs (Ethereum)

Audioglyphs are 10,000 randomly generated, infinite audio NFTs derived from on-chain Pixelglyph data. Instead of publishing statically recorded songs and limiting access, artists create infinite variations available for all to explore freely. Each Audioglyph synthesizes a unique, infinite stream of music directly in your browser at lossless quality. They plan to open source the core technology Audioglyphs uses for managing and embedding audio processing on the web and continue to develop tools for artists to create and publish generative music.

WrapSound (Ethereum)

WrapSound is conjuring music together using generative NFTs, and it is the #1 music NFT collection on OpenSea. The platforms’ unique NFT collectibles give holders access to creators on the platform. Each NFT has a unique musical fingerprint determined by the combination of its base characters. Over time, the metadata will be used to generate music as a part of the platform's core identity.

SoundMint (Ethereum)

SoundMint lets you own unique generative music NFTs with visual layers and music stems. Users can connect with artists by investing in the music they like. Through these NFTs, users can access metaverse events and artists' communities.?

ThroneAge (Ethereum)

ThroneAge is a collection of 300 unique NFTs that apply rarity to audio traits (music stems) just like a visual NFT. The NFTs function as a genesis level membership pass to members-only content, benefits, and experiences on the platform. Sandbox is the metaverse platform chosen for live metaverse events.

MUSIC DAOS?

Quick Disclaimer

The goal of these subcategories is not necessarily to categorize, but to help organize them according to each DAO's objectives.

CO-OWNERSHIP/STEWARDSHIP

StoiI.org (Ethereum)

Stoi.org is a DAO based on music rights and royalties. The platform creates a smart contract for each song, allowing artists, fans, and interested stakeholders to share music ownership and future earnings. The innovative approach of this platform can quickly get confusing, but tokens issued by the smart contract on each song represent voting rights which include decision-making on royalty distribution, distribution strategy, and agreement on how to reach future decisions. The platform aims to build full-blown microeconomics around music.?

Chaos (Ethereum)

Chaos is a headless NFT band composed of artists, musicians, and sound engineers. It was founded to redefine the music industry and decentralize participation through unique pack NFTs that provide users an extra layer of value. Users can unlock or hold packs containing 45 unique NFTs, each varying based on the open time.?

Holy+DAO (Ethereum)

This development wants to bring awareness to voice models, in combination with machine learning technology, which already allows anyone to clone a voice to generate music and media, which, in turn, raises novel questions about voice ownership that will be addressed by the Holly+DAO governance. Others can make unique (1 of 1) artworks with her voice and distribute ownership through the Holly+ DAO.

INVESTMENT

NoiseDAO (Ethereum)

NoiseDAO aims to unite members interested in supporting the cross-section of music and technology. NoiseDAO will support musicians, purchase NFTs, archive, collect, and invest in the digital music ecosystem. NoiseDAO will have up to 65 initial members, who will pool their capital to make investments. Each member can purchase 10,000 NoiseDAO units for 2 ETH (up to 100,000 units for 20 ETH).

GENERATIVE MUSIC???

ModaDAO (Ethereum)

ModaDAO is a generative WEB3 music infrastructure. The project aims to create a decentralized community-run body for generative music collaborations. ModaDAO connects music lovers with artists 1:1 relationship with their fans using generative music NFT that users can buy and own.

INDUSTRY

CreateDAO?

With an all-encompassing structure, CreateDAO's mission takes root in supporting artists, from the power of their voices to the business that allows them to continue creating driven by eight principles: Open Source, Education, Information, Relationship, Project, Collaboration, and Business Management, Actionable Insights, Artist Sovereignty. The project features a CreateSafe wallet (beta) to help artists with their financial decisions and a Deal Simulator to help artists, managers, and labels model deal options, forecast profits and better understand the finances of how record deals work. It also lets members schedule tasks and get a consultation with social initiatives, virtual community space, and education courseware.

PhloteDAO (Ethereum)

PhloteDAO believes that the current music industry is ridden with rights management oversight and other bottlenecks contrary to the idea of an open and collaborative internet. In response, the project is building a WEB3 infrastructure for massive open-source music collaboration.

Other industry-driven DAOS shoutouts: ModaDAO, GoodKarmaDAO.

COMMUNITY

GenreDAO (Ethereum)

GenreDAO is an all-music genre community focused on uplifting experimental voices. It is a decentralized extension of LeavingRecords. DAO participants are entitled to exclusive benefits like access to special communities and events. They can also use the $Genre token to purchase exclusive music NFTs on the platform.

Other community-driven DAOS shoutouts: DreamsNeverDie, SongADAO, Ampled.

UPCOMING?

DataVault & Stemit

After securing an elated spot for itself in metaverse data visualization, monetization, and valuation, DataVault Holdings is partnering with Stemit to launch an NFT marketplace that will also serve as an exchange. The platform will give artists the digital tools to itemize music into separate assets that can be sold as NFTs. Doing this will create a revenue stream for artists and increase fan engagement and connection with their work. Stemit is also versed in the music management space.

Universal Music Group (UMG) & Curio

UMG, the multinational music corporation aims to foray into the music NFT space by launching fan-oriented NFTs on Curio. The NFTs will feature the most exclusive works from an unparalleled roster of A-list artists in partnership with Universal Music Group. Curio will provide the technical infrastructure for the launch of the NFTs.

Kingship

UMG music group Kingship's signed key card NFTs allow collectors to access the platform’s virtual world and unlock product experiences. The collection quickly ranked #1 on OpenSea and sold out in 2 hours. The supergroup consists of Bored Apes, Rare Mutant Apes, and other bluechip NFTs.?

THE LOWEST HANGING FRUIT: WEB 3.0 / METAVERSE PROBLEMS?

Owning Your Experience?

Let us put music NFTs and all other metaverse experiences into perspective. All current metaverses/multiplayer games have replaced username and passwords with reading an NFT balance, running on someone’s centralized server, and using NFTs as a different login method. Inevitably games/metaverses will vampire-attack each other to steal each other’s users. Servers, then, will inevitably become too expensive to maintain and go down. When that happens, your experience goes down with it. In the best-case scenario, you will end up with a wallet full of NFT spam vaguely contextually connected, which won't mean anything.

This is not true of the metaverse experience. It’s neither permanent, decentralized, nor lets you own your experience. Users need to be able to play ad hoc whenever they want to, as short or long a session as they wish, being able to log out of the experience each time with a slightly more valuable NFT, therefore truly owning their experience. Ultimately, everything the players have achieved needs to stay with them. That is a devastating thought considering a lot of the new music will be created within these metaverse ecosystems and experiences in the coming years.?

Usability

You can’t onboard the next billion users into WEB3/metaverses if you expect them to know all the intricacies of WEB3 or sit down behind a computer and use WASD to navigate and a mouse to look around.?

So projects can either make the user suffer through the UI/UX and painfully improve upon feedback or make it hyper-casual and user-friendly. Technicalities have to be mitigated, preferably invisible and mobile native.

Solvency?

Most development teams aren’t good enough to make sustainable (game) economies because they simply have no experience with it, but most of them default to (P2E) mechanics where they shower various tokens on users until the token trends to zero and everything goes to hell.?

You can’t expect to raise money based on an Unreal Engine 5 demo and simply push out a triple A platform. That’s simply not gonna happen! Most development teams don’t even announce they are building something until they are three years in, and they’ve already discarded 20 different prototypes because they weren’t fun enough. That’s not how (game) development works.??

Adoption

Focusing strictly on music, the traditional music business is, well, traditional. There’s still a lot of “old money” invested into it, and maybe we need to look at other macro indicators. Mass adoption will hit when a few things like the regulatory side are completely clear on what is what.?

Most developers gravitate towards ETH due to the overkill of over 90% of NFT transaction volume being accrued to the ETH blockchain alone. Besides all the problems that come with that (not only true for ETH), most importantly, the gas fees (gwei) are also insane. Considering that most countries have their currencies devalued, besides all the other socio-economic issues that arise when discussing developing countries, it is simply too far-fetched to even consider buying an NFT. A kid from Brazil, for example, won’t have the equivalent of ~U$40 to pay for gas fees on a “free” mint, and the inclusion speech present in most projects and DAOs fall through.?

Data

Situations will inevitably come up when data will have to be changed due to false or fake claims or IP copyright disputes which alter ownership details, efforts to sue your way out of your terrible initial contract and the death of a musician. Changing information in present-day blockchains is not easy. In addition, merely keeping a record of transactions on-chain does not address every issue. Some royalties are not covered by the existing blockchain solutions. Also, holistically speaking, the technology that allows migration of an NFT to a different blockchain ecosystem is inexistent within the mainstream, and the whole music business cannot potentially be scaled by a single blockchain.

CONCLUSION

Needless to say, I quickly realized after going through a couple of pages what a truly daunting task it is to put together a holistic perspective of both traditional and WEB3 music worlds in a way that is feasible in one continuous article, so at the end the reader could formulate their discourse, being able to sort of zoom in and zoom out between the generalist and in-depth perspectives from both ends of the spectrum.?

Well, here it is. If you made it this far, I appreciate the time and effort, and hopefully, you were able to go through it all without losing interest or getting too overwhelmed. I always welcome criticism, questions, and different opinions, whichever they may be, for, with these conversations, we find new solutions, overcome obstacles and grow as a community.?

The post-pandemic era has re-echoed the need for better systems that are not just functional but compatible with multiple formats and mediums, from metaverse immersive experiences to entirely different economies.?

The rewards stream for artists could turn exponentially numerous, and this will not stop the income flow to brands in established industries if they are supportive of a fairer ecosystem with better benefits for the creators of the art. Think about using the same energy used to sideline artists in the first place to create more rewards for sustainable creativity by adding value to separate components of all the arts, each with the capability of making organizations or individuals substantial revenue.?

The idea is to minimize the pyramidal structure that leaves people below or the upcoming artists to suffer. Instead, a transparent and composable system will remove the music and entertainment industry bubble and promote the art in its truest form.?

As the cryptocurrency space becomes more connected, working to become a global supercomputer, a better music infrastructure will drive sustainable adoption and infinite creativity.

#YVAYT