Unjustified and rather irrational revenue distribution mechanism amongst artists, label companies, producers, and other parties have led the music industry into financial obscurity. Blockchain and security experts believe bitcoin’s underlying technology could revolutionize the payment distribution mechanism in the entertainment market.
Some startups like SingularDTV have proposed the concept of establishing a completely unique token on a smart contract-based blockchain, which allows artists and producers to track their fair share of earnings. However, most criticisms towards these unique cryptocurrency-based music blockchain platforms have always been security.
PledgeMusic chief strategy officer Benji Rogers however, believes the bitcoin blockchain is the perfect platform for processing revenue distribution and management.
Bitcoin has a significant advantage over custom built blockchain networks in terms of security and adaptability. As most bitcoin experts explain, blockchain networks that prioritize flexibility and functionality are forced to compromise security measures and protocols, which ultimately makes them insecure and impractical in storing sensitive data.
For the blockchain technology to alter current payment distribution mechanisms in the music industry, it must create a transparent and trustless ecosystem for all parties involved for accurate payment tracement.
Rogers call this payment data Fairtrade Minimum Viable Data (MVD), which he believes can be integrated onto secure blockchain networks like bitcoin. Once this data is embedded to a transaction, it can be traced down in a public network, which grants artists, label companies, producers, and consumers the ability to track intellectual rights.
“To put it simply, if we could put every song’s MVD into a global decentralized database owned by all who interact with it, then this would start to solve a multitude of the music and content industry’s problems regarding ownership, payments and transparency,” said Rogers.
The utilization of the bitcoin blockchain will also lead the development of a frictionless relationship between music streaming applications and artists, which has been incredibly unstable due to the arising conflicts on fair revenue distribution.
If an artist’s track is listed on the bitcoin network, both the artist and the label company will be able to observe exactly how often it was accessed and played, that gives the artist and its company the right to demand a certain amount of profit share.
