We’ve heard a lot about Music NFTs : when DJ and producer 3LAU sold 12 million worth of NFTs in early 2021 , or when the Grammy Awards announced their own non-fungible tokens, or when Mick Jagger launched an Music NFTs based on it of his new song , with proceeds going to charity.
Although the term has grabbed a lot of headlines this year, Music NFTs could be just the tip of an iceberg that has the potential to once again transform the way the music industry works.
As blockchain technology advances, musicians are opening up the potential of a new financial system in a post-royalty industry that supports real-time revenue streams and protects digital rights. The buzzword is blockchain music . To explain all of this, we’ll first dive into how the web is reimagined, how and why the future of music is decentralized, and what it all means for indie bands.
To do that, we not only delved into the deepest corners of the forums to understand it for ourselves, but also interviewed Chris Scott : i Musician’s tech-savvy loophole master and Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
Music NFTs And Digital Property :
NFT is a digital certificate of authenticity. Any digital file, e.g. A track, for example, can be tagged with a string of digits and become a registered object on the blockchain, creating a cryptographic token that proves the authenticity of the asset. Currently, most platforms where you can create and sell NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain.
Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin. This means that you would buy an NFT (usually with Ethereum), but instead of owning money, you are the digital owner of a song, for example. Whatever you put into an NFT, you set the rights to it. When a song is released using NFT, ownership can always be traced back to whoever created it, protecting your copyright. It also means that this song is unique, which makes it provably rare – and therefore valuable.
NFTs were hyped in the art scene in 2018 because buying an NFT is like buying a Dalí original: you can recreate postcards from it, but there is only one original. In music, artists can create NFTs to auction various forms of digital media to their fans. This can range from a collector’s edition of a release with a hidden verse to a signed album, backstage passes, beats or samples – practically anything
NFTs are about scarcity , and people can invest in music like they would in physical art. But would that mean my song is only available to those who buy it? No, it can (and should) also be published on Spotify, Deezer, YouTube and every other platform, but your infinitely duplicated track has only one original, which retains its scarcity, just like any physical good.
