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Three Crypto Music Platforms to Watch in 2020
Early music sharing platforms such as Napster had similar features and characteristics to many cryptocurrency music sharing projects. Instantaneous peer to peer downloads, as well as global sharing was much more difficult to achieve pre-Napster. What resulted is a blending and melding of music from all corners of the world. All of this for free.
In this article, we will be examining how various projects are deciding to incorporate a dimension of cryptocurrency into music sharing. The main problem that the majority of them seem to be aiming at solving, is digital rights, and proper compensation for the artist. The underlying technology to cryptocurrency is blockchain, and it just so happens that it may be the perfect tool to solve those aforementioned problems.
UJO
UJO is a self-publishing, self-licensing platform built on Ethereum. The idea is that you can buy songs directly from the artists themselves, rather than going through a streaming platform like Spotify. Blockchains have the potential to reduce the overhead cost of running a large cooperation. In the end, this would, in theory, result in the artists keeping more of the money spent on the songs. Imogen Heap, singer-songwriter and music producer has backed Ujo, and even hosts a number of her songs on the platform in order to test out the platform. While you can purchase Imogen’s song for life for just $.60, the transaction fee for the Ethereum blockchain oftentimes would be more than the song itself. However, at the core, the concepts of UJO are concrete. Self Publishing, Self Licensing, Self Distribution.
Related Projects: Mycelia, Audius, MediaChain
BitSong
The key feature of BitSong is that it includes advertisers in its platform as a way of injecting more money into the ecosystem. Artists may upload their songs to the platform, and choose to serve advertisements alongside their song. The artist and the user then share 90% of the proceeds paid by the advertiser. Rather than relying solely on the end user for compensating the artists as we saw with UJO, BitSong includes an optional third party. BitSong uses blockchain for the reliable automation of payments to the various channels. Those who are familiar with the Brave Browser, know that BitSong is borrowing the ad revenue share model from the browser.
Related Projects: Brave Browser
eMusic
eMusic differentiates themselves by providing a wide value offering for artists and music consumers. One great aspect of eMusic, is the ability for artists to raise funds directly from their fans in order to bring a project to life. This way, the audience can own a stake of the project that the artist produces. This is a model wherein the copyright for the album, or even individual songs can be tokenized. That is, you can own a digital share of the copyright that is attached to songs or albums. This is a fantastic use of blockchain technology, as it has the potential to dramatically increase audience engagement with their favorite artists. Wouldn’t you like to own a piece of your favorite song?
