Blockchain tech transforming music

Music industry has undergone massive change in the internet era but still the issue of artists not receiving a fair share of the profits their work reaped, remains. The growing usage of blockchain in this industry is expected to bring fairness and transparency to music related monetary transactions and also address the challenges related to copyrights, music ownership and subscription based services. Corporate Citizen brings to you, insights into the influence of blockchain on the music industry

The Statista report had predicted the total global music industry revenue to grow to $65 billion in 2023 which is a big increase from the $51 billion it earned in 2017. The top 1 per cent of artists earn 77 per cent of the total income received by artists. This means other artists do not earn any significant income. The industry has many middlemen like record labels, radio companies and streaming services. So, there is a need for artists to get a fair amount of income for their creativity and products. Artists and musicians are using blockchain for music to immediately and directly earn returns from sales, streams and shares, without the need to share profits with middlemen, including record labels, distributors and streaming platforms or pay any additional fees.

NFTs of foreign and Indian music artists

Non Fungible Tokens or NFTs has become a new popular method among the foreign as well as Indian artists to directly connect with their audiences as well as earn revenue from their works. Don Diablo had made history after selling Destination Hexagonia, the first-ever full length concert for a whopping $ 1.2 million in four minutes in April 2021. Canadian rapper Tory Lanez sold one million copies of his NFT album – ‘When It’s Dark’ in just 57 seconds for one dollar each in August 2021.

Sonu Nigam, popular singer, music director and actor had launched the Indian music industry’s first NFT series in London in collaboration with JetSynthesys, a digital entertainment and technology business on 19 November 2021. Playback singer Kumar Sanu has launched an NFT series, which is only accessible through the FlamingoNFT platform in 2022. The NFT collection comprising of 1008 distinct NFTs of Ilaiyaraaja was released on NFT marketplace WishWorld. com in June 2022. The last unreleased song of legendary singer Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam, popularly known as SP Balasubrahmanyam was released as NFT on Diginoor in April 2022. Sitar maestro Purbayan Chatterjee dropped his unique NFT collection – ‘Pursuits of Purbayan’ (POP) comprising of 11,100 variations that include some of his most famous sitar pieces, as audio NFTs in August 2022. These can be traded on OpenSea. NFT marketplace: It is a digital platform for buying and selling NFTs. Each NFT marketplace has its own set of operating rules. They charge fees for transactions.

Top global NFT marketplaces:

OpenSea: It was launched in 20 December, 2017. Artists can create, mint and sell any type of music or music-related items here.

SuperRare: It was launched on 17 August, 2021. It is super selective about who gets to mint NFTs on its site and ensuring each NFT is unique. So you can get quality NFTs here.

Rarible: It was launched in 2019. It allows card payments to buy fixed-price NFTs.

Indian NFT marketplaces

WazirX: After its launch in 2018, it became the first Indian NFT marketplace. Playback singer Neha Rajpal was the first Indian female motivational singer to trade with NFT here. Many Indian artists had released their works as NFTs on it but it sunsetted in 2023 and its NFTs can be traded on OpenSea.

Jupiter Meta: India’s first fully curated NFT marketplace was launched on 23 February, 2022. It focuses on music, film and gaming.

FanTiger: FanTiger, India's first dedicated music NFT marketplace was launched in July 2022. It launched India's first Indie Rock Music NFT, 'Nusrat' by the popular Chandigarh-based band, 'Naalayak' on 19 August, 2022.