This website uses cookies to better the user experience of its visitors. Where applicable, this website uses a cookie control system, allowing users to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer/device on their first visit to the website. This complies with recent legislative requirements for websites to obtain explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a user’s computer/device. To learn more click Cookie Policy.

Privacy preference center

Cookies are small files saved to a user’s computer/device hard drive that track, save, and store information about the user’s interactions and website use. They allow a website, through its server, to provide users with a tailored experience within the site. Users are advised to take necessary steps within their web browser security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website to their computer’s/device’s hard drive. To learn more click Cookie Policy.

Manage consent preferences

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies list
Name _rg_session
Provider rubygarage.org
Retention period 2 days
Type First party
Category Necessary
Description The website session cookie is set by the server to maintain the user's session state across different pages of the website. This cookie is essential for functionalities such as login persistence, ensuring a seamless and consistent user experience. The session cookie does not store personal data and is typically deleted when the browser is closed, enhancing privacy and security.
Name m
Provider m.stripe.com
Retention period 1 year 1 month
Type Third party
Category Necessary
Description The m cookie is set by Stripe and is used to help assess the risk associated with attempted transactions on the website. This cookie plays a critical role in fraud detection by identifying and analyzing patterns of behavior to distinguish between legitimate users and potentially fraudulent activity. It enhances the security of online transactions, ensuring that only authorized payments are processed while minimizing the risk of fraud.
Name __cf_bm
Provider .pipedrive.com
Retention period 1 hour
Type Third party
Category Necessary
Description The __cf_bm cookie is set by Cloudflare to support Cloudflare Bot Management. This cookie helps to identify and filter requests from bots, enhancing the security and performance of the website. By distinguishing between legitimate users and automated traffic, it ensures that the site remains protected from malicious bots and potential attacks. This functionality is crucial for maintaining the integrity and reliability of the site's operations.
Name _GRECAPTCHA
Provider .recaptcha.net
Retention period 6 months
Type Third party
Category Necessary
Description The _GRECAPTCHA cookie is set by Google reCAPTCHA to ensure that interactions with the website are from legitimate human users and not automated bots. This cookie helps protect forms, login pages, and other interactive elements from spam and abuse by analyzing user behavior. It is essential for the proper functioning of reCAPTCHA, providing a critical layer of security to maintain the integrity and reliability of the site's interactive features.
Name __cf_bm
Provider .calendly.com
Retention period 30 minutes
Type Third party
Category Necessary
Description The __cf_bm cookie is set by Cloudflare to distinguish between humans and bots. This cookie is beneficial for the website as it helps in making valid reports on the use of the website. By identifying and managing automated traffic, it ensures that analytics and performance metrics accurately reflect human user interactions, thereby enhancing site security and performance.
Name __cfruid
Provider .calendly.com
Retention period During session
Type Third party
Category Necessary
Description The __cfruid cookie is associated with websites using Cloudflare services. This cookie is used to identify trusted web traffic and enhance security. It helps Cloudflare manage and filter legitimate traffic from potentially harmful requests, thereby protecting the website from malicious activities such as DDoS attacks and ensuring reliable performance for genuine users.
Name OptanonConsent
Provider .calendly.com
Retention period 1 year
Type Third party
Category Necessary
Description The OptanonConsent cookie determines whether the visitor has accepted the cookie consent box, ensuring that the consent box will not be presented again upon re-entry to the site. This cookie helps maintain the user's consent preferences and compliance with privacy regulations by storing information about the categories of cookies the user has consented to and preventing unnecessary repetition of consent requests.
Name OptanonAlertBoxClosed
Provider .calendly.com
Retention period 1 year
Type Third party
Category Necessary
Description The OptanonAlertBoxClosed cookie is set after visitors have seen a cookie information notice and, in some cases, only when they actively close the notice. It ensures that the cookie consent message is not shown again to the user, enhancing the user experience by preventing repetitive notifications. This cookie helps manage user preferences and ensures compliance with privacy regulations by recording when the notice has been acknowledged.
Name referrer_user_id
Provider .calendly.com
Retention period 14 days
Type Third party
Category Necessary
Description The referrer_user_id cookie is set by Calendly to support the booking functionality on the website. This cookie helps track the source of referrals to the booking page, enabling Calendly to attribute bookings accurately and enhance the user experience by streamlining the scheduling process. It assists in managing user sessions and preferences during the booking workflow, ensuring efficient and reliable operation.
Name _calendly_session
Provider .calendly.com
Retention period 21 days
Type Third party
Category Necessary
Description The _calendly_session cookie is set by Calendly, a meeting scheduling tool, to enable the meeting scheduler to function within the website. This cookie facilitates the scheduling process by maintaining session information, allowing visitors to book meetings and add events to their calendars seamlessly. It ensures that the scheduling workflow operates smoothly, providing a consistent and reliable user experience.
Name _gat_UA-*
Provider rubygarage.org
Retention period 1 minute
Type First party
Category Analytics
Description The _gat_UA-* cookie is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element in the name contains the unique identity number of the Google Analytics account or website it relates to. This cookie is a variation of the _gat cookie and is used to throttle the request rate, limiting the amount of data collected by Google Analytics on high traffic websites. It helps manage the volume of data recorded, ensuring efficient performance and accurate analytics reporting.
Name _ga
Provider rubygarage.org
Retention period 1 year 1 month 4 days
Type First party
Category Analytics
Description The _ga cookie is set by Google Analytics to calculate visitor, session, and campaign data for the site's analytics reports. It helps track how users interact with the website, providing insights into site usage and performance.
Name _ga_*
Provider rubygarage.org
Retention period 1 year 1 month 4 days
Type First party
Category Analytics
Description The _ga_* cookie is set by Google Analytics to store and count page views on the website. This cookie helps track the number of visits and interactions with the website, providing valuable data for performance and user behavior analysis. It belongs to the analytics category and plays a crucial role in generating detailed usage reports for site optimization.
Name _gid
Provider rubygarage.org
Retention period 1 day
Type First party
Category Analytics
Description The _gid cookie is set by Google Analytics to store information about how visitors use a website and to create an analytics report on the website's performance. This cookie collects data on visitor behavior, including pages visited, duration of the visit, and interactions with the website, helping site owners understand and improve user experience. It is part of the analytics category and typically expires after 24 hours.
Name _dc_gtm_UA-*
Provider rubygarage.org
Retention period 1 minute
Type First party
Category Analytics
Description The _dc_gtm_UA-* cookie is set by Google Analytics to help load the Google Analytics script tag via Google Tag Manager. This cookie facilitates the efficient loading of analytics tools, ensuring that data on user behavior and website performance is accurately collected and reported. It is categorized under analytics and assists in the seamless integration and functioning of Google Analytics on the website.

Music Industry Problems and How They Can Be Solved with the Blockchain

  • 11882 views
  • 5 min
  • Jun 13, 2018
Viсtoria S.

Viсtoria S.

Copywriter

Vlad V.

Vlad V.

Chief Executive Officer

Share

Today we see various industries, including creative ones, adopting new technologies to change for the better. And now some people claim that using the blockchain in the music industry can solve the industry’s main problems.

So how can blockchain technology help artists? To answer this question, let’s take a look at the industry’s common problems.

Lack of a single database

The music industry lacks a global registry of musical recordings that would contain information on their creators and owners. What we have today is a number of databases, but the information they provide may vary.

Blockchain technology can make it possible to create a single database of musical creators and their works. Moreover, this database could provide contact information for music owners as well as terms of use.

Middlesex University’s report titled Music on the Blockchain reveals how bringing music and the blockchain together can influence the industry. As the report states, the blockchain can be both a database and a network, allowing information to sit on a distributed ledger rather than in silos.

Need for an intermediary

Over the years, the music industry has worked in a way that has made musicians rely on labels, distributors, and promoters. But with this model, artists often face complicated revenue distribution systems where every intermediary takes part of the income. That’s why music distribution is still an issue for artists.

How can we deal with this problem?

Blockchain technology lets music creators publish their works and sell them directly to fans without a third party. As a result, it eliminates the need for publishers and distributors.

The Blockchain Eliminates the Need for Distributors

Let’s take Pindify, a blockchain-based platform that RubyGarage built, as an example. Pindify is a marketplace where musicians and other creatives can share their works and earn money. Moreover, Pindify is a network platform since it enables communication between artists and their fans. Pindify has even offered users to participate in an ICO.

Royalty issues

According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s Global Music Report, 2017 saw 41.1 percent growth in streaming revenue. But to upload music to Spotify, for instance, musicians need distributors. Taking into account the pretty complicated formula that Spotify uses to distribute royalties, this distributor often receives a significant part of the income. Moreover, the revenue that artists get may vary depending on their contract with their label. Over the years, even the biggest music streaming services have been occasionally accused of underpayment. Some popular musicians, including Taylor Swift and Adele, have decided to remove their albums from streaming services, citing unfair payment practices.

Let’s see how using the blockchain in the music industry can help solve this particular issue. Being a transparent system, the blockchain enables music creators to receive payments directly, bypassing intermediaries. With its help, musicians and their fans can make peer-to-peer exchanges securely, using smart contracts that guarantee transparency. Stored on the blockchain, these contracts can include a specific percentage of income that rights holders get directly. With a smart contract, revenue can be automatically divided, letting musicians receive payments immediately and directly from their listeners.

For instance, the founders of Ujo Music state that with their blockchain music platform, rights owners can design licenses themselves and receive automated royalty payments. Thus, musicians can have more control over their recordings and revenue.

We’re trying to create a system that’s fair for the artists first and foremost.

Jesse Grushack, Founder of Ujo

Copyright issues

To use someone else’s work of art, you need to get the rights holder’s permission. This sounds simple, but in reality this process often turns out to be more complicated and time-consuming than one would expect. Moreover, licensing and collecting performance royalties usually involves publishing companies and organizations like BMI and ASCAP that protect musical copyrights. It often takes some real effort to find out who you actually need to pay to use copyrighted music.

With blockchain technology, each musical recording can contain metadata with information regarding copyrights and terms of use. This would simplify the process of getting a license to use copyrighted music. Moreover, this technology would make tracking plays easier as well. It’s possible to protect music with the blockchain.

Several musical artists have already released singles or full albums on the blockchain. One of them is Imogen Heap. As Heap explains, she would like to avoid situations when other artists get their content taken down for using her music. One of the advantages of the blockchain for music artists is that it simplifies the process of collaboration by making it clearer and more transparent.

Blockchain has the potential to provide a more quick and seamless experience for anyone involved with creating or interacting with music.

Imogen Heap

Imogen Heap has also founded Mycelia, another blockchain music platform where artists can get paid fairly without having to involve distributors or other third parties, giving musicians more control over their works.

Blockchain Music Platforms

Monetizing the fan base

Building a fan base is vital for every artist since with its help the artist can make a living. Even when you already have a fan base, however, monetizing it can be quite a challenge when taking into account the terms that streaming services and publishing companies offer.

Using the blockchain for music sharing, artists can get solid support from their fans. The blockchain gives listeners the possibility to select a song or album and immediately pay for it. And it’s more convenient to make micropayments with cryptocurrencies due to small transaction fees.

To release Utopia, Björk teamed up with Blockpool, which lets people pay for this album with cryptocurrencies.

Another example is RAC’s EGO. To release his album on the Ethereum blockchain, RAC collaborated with Ujo. Jesse Grushack, founder of Ujo, notes that the artist managed to make even more money from tips than from sales. So it’s safe to say that fans are more likely to buy their favorite musicians’ records when they know exactly where their money will go.

If you want to know more about the blockchain and other technologies, follow our blog.

CONTENTS

Authors:

Viсtoria S.

Viсtoria S.

Copywriter

Vlad V.

Vlad V.

Chief Executive Officer

Rate this article!

Nay
So-so
Not bad
Good
Wow
2 rating, average 4.5 out of 5

Share article with

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet

Leave a comment

Subscribe via email and know it all first!