Impact of Blockchain on the music industry and certain implications associated with it

Blockchain technology has impacted the music industry to an extent and has helped the industry shift its power from the third parties directly to the music artists. This new form of technology has the potential to be used to increase financial inclusions in the developing economies where it is highly needed. Apart from impacting the music industry, blockchain technology has been widely accepted as well. However, the possible use of this technology is quite limited to the financial sector.

Working on the Distributed Ledger System or DLT blockchain has developed a system that has digitally transformed without the involvement of any intermediary. This reduces the risk of duplication and the ownership is immutable and is certainly the need of the day for the music industry. By preventing the risk of duplication blockchain has successfully aided the music industry apart from serving all other industries.

How is blockchain transforming the music industry?

As discussed earlier the most important part played by blockchain technology is the elimination of any third parties. It can be related to the sales of music and streaming of new music albums as well. However, on the other hand, many streaming platforms have even changed their way of work and devised a whole new way to intermediate between the music artists and their fans. Blockchain technology has helped the music streaming industry by providing an affordable and user-friendly solution to fight piracy and let the artist receive the respect that they highly deserve.

Apart from fighting piracy, blockchain technology has even helped deal with the payment discrepancies which could arise in terms of the music genre and the country of origin as well. This way the artists get royalties’ which was earlier accounted only for a small percentage of music artists only.

How blockchain could impact music lovers?

Blockchain technology has the power to shift and can help in strengthening bonds between the fans and the artists as the fans will follow their artists to help promote their favorite tracks. Implementation of this technology in the music industry will allow the music artists to reward their fans with free tickets for the live concerts, give them access to live recordings, and even for the especial recordings by simply using the tokens. Blockchain comes with a lot of potentials and it can even let the fans invest directly in the artists’ music releases by purchasing crypto tokens.

In terms of the empowerment of the music artists, the technology has helped in creating some blockchain-based music streaming platforms to deliver the music to the general public. It was made possible only by eliminating the middlemen and by providing fully decentralized music streaming platforms. Blockchain being a P2P network also allows for file storage and the users can even use the network as servers. In terms of artist payment disbursement, the use of smart contracts also allows the artists to be paid directly after streaming music and the payment can be disbursed independently as well.

There is no doubt to the fact that blockchain technology has simplified the music industry by creating a streamlined way for the music artists helping them tackle all other dimensions of the industry which can be quite challenging for any aspiring music artist. Now with a decentralized database, the music artists can upload their latest albums and also earn a total of 100% percent of the music sales. One of the popular projects where blockchain has been used is the Open Music Initiative of the United States where blockchain technology has been used to identify the music rights holders. It is a live example of how much impact this technology can have on the music industry.