The Music Industry Landscape is Changing, Courtesy of Blockchain

pAs time progresses it has become increasingly evident that blockchain technology will not be limited to the boundaries of financial services While distributed ledger technology has made the digital transfer of value seamless inclusive free of duplication risk and intermediaries it is also changing the rules of the game for many other industries dominated by gatekeepersnbspppOne of such industries is thenbspa hrefhttpscointelegraphcomnewsblockchaintodisruptmusicindustryandmakeitchangetune targetblankmusic industrya In todayrsquos music industry it would be foolish to deny the contribution of the streaming platforms such as Napster Soundcloud and Spotify in empowering the creators with a costefficient and userfriendly alternative to piracy It has allowed them to receive royalties for their work in a more transparent way than before Yet there exists an undeniable discrepancy when it comes to the distribution of royalties Analysts and experts find that the market remains skewed with a limited number of hyperproductive artists dominating most royalty paymentsnbspppSeveral blockchain solutions are trying to remove this disparity by improving conditions for new and emerging artists so that they get better visibility do not need to pay any intermediaries and in turn get their due royalties in full Opus one such blockchainbased solution catering to the music industry is a PP network for file sharing and storage with its users acting as servers This unique structure ensures that there are no hosting fees related to streamingnbspppOn another layernbspa hrefhttpsopusaudio targetblankOpusanbspalso leverages the Ethereum network for payment management Leveraging selfexecuting smart contracts Opus ensures an independent distribution of content and royalties As a result the artists retain almost all of the payments and incoming revenue There are other platforms such asnbspa hrefhttpwwwmediachainio targetblankMediachainanbspa hrefhttpwwwmusiclifeio targetblankMusiclifeanbspa hrefhttpswwwemusiccom targetblankeMusica and more that are attempting similar ways to guarantee independent artists a larger share of their dues along with a more uniform and equitable distribution of content We hope that such blockchainbased platforms will augment their services in the days to come making content creation a more profitable earning opportunity for upcoming artistsp