Opportunities for the Creative Economy

How blockchain technology can monetize new music ventures: an examination of new business models

“…Further reflections on external factors are beyond the scope of this paper. For more detail on political, economic, social, legal and environmental barriers to, and risks of, adopting blockchain technology in the creative economy context, see O’Dair (2019).…”

“…Blockchain, as a new and disruptive technology, can provide new ways for creative ventures to do business (O’Dair, 2019). This is particularly the case for the recorded music sector, as Elder (2017) proclaimed:…”

“…Imogen Heap, a singer, songwriter, producer and musician, also made headlines in 2015 by using the Ethereum blockchain to pay all contributors to a track, “Tiny Human”, via a “smart contract” or programmable transaction executed on the Ethereum blockchain. Arguably more important than ICOs, then, is the fact that blockchains can be used to secure artists’ rights, and to automate both royalty payments and licensing through smart contracts (O’Dair, 2019). Blokur, one of the start-ups interviewed for this paper, recently announced a project with Massive Attack that used blockchain technology to track the intellectual property in remixes.…”

“…The problem is compounded by the fact that databases are also maintained by collection societies, responsible for collective or “blanket” licensing, in countries across the world, and these databases, too, can conflict. Blockchains could transform this landscape of centralized, potentially conflicting copyright databases into a more inclusive world of distributed, networked databases – providing a single source of truth, such as who should receive royalties and respond to licensing requests, for a particular song (O’Dair, 2019). This has the potential to provide a growing range of innovative and important funding streams for artists.…”

“…Here, the business model is simply defined as how to do business , relating to the strategic act of an individual venture within a system (Zott et al , 2011). Our perspective is necessarily systems-based, as it requires consideration of the role of intermediaries (or more precisely, infomediaries) within the business system and specifically focuses on the role of technology (Tumasjan and Beutel, 2018; Baden-Fuller and Haefliger, 2013; Chesbrough, 2003, 2010) – notably recent blockchain technology developments – as a fundamental driver in the evolution of intermediary business services in the recorded music industry (O’Dair, 2019).…”