This MBW post comes from Ran Geffen (inset photo), CEO of Amusica Song Management in Israel and founder of OG.studio, an augmented reality content and business development agency facilitating the transition to web3.
The music companies insisted that Twitter fully license the music.
But as the potential new owner of the platform, Elon Musk won’t be playing the music industry’s game—instead, the music industry must play his.
Having said that, Musk’s music DAO initiative (let’s call it MuziX, given Musk’s branding history) could actually be the answer to their request: it would be a blockchain-based, decentralized copyright and licensing management platform , which will democratize the way music is licensed.
The big potential losers if Musk decides to enter the music business? Collective management organizations and, by proxy, their respective members.To survive in Musk’s world, they must be the architects of their own (current) demise.
Let’s take a closer look at Twitter’s position in the landscape in the context of the music business: It is a gathering space where musicians interact with each other and their fans, and where web3 music projects are launched and managed.
It was labeled by the IFPI as a “serious problem for the music industry” in its subjection to the European The commission and PRS chief executive Andrea Chapari Martin called on the company to “take responsibility for the music it shares with millions of people around the world”.
Twitter’s response was, “We’re always looking for ways we can support our creator community.“
Now let’s take a closer look at Musk.
His TED Talk about the future gives a good insight into the way he thinks and works.His main interest at the moment? AI.It took time for the AI of autonomous cars to learn how to use roads meant for humans.
It had to understand and mimic human vision and interaction.
Optimus, Musk’s humanoid AI robot, also needs to understand people in order to interact with them.
Twitter is the perfect place to analyze human interaction based on short utterances and reactions.Musk would increase that interaction by allowing his users to see if the algorithm has changed a tweet and suggest corrections.In short: Musk is turning Twitter customers into collaborators in his mission to improve human-machine interaction.
Amy Thomson of Hipgnosis proposed the same solution recently MBW Podcast – a global copyright database that is proven by the creators themselves.
She also highlights the lack of transparency as a major problem in today’s ecosystem.
Transparency is at the heart of blockchain technology.
Tom Allen of Curve Royalty Systems gave a 10-15 year time frame for the industry to adopt blockchain as a solution (giving self-driving cars as an example) and talks about Ethereum’s scale and high transaction fee.
Musk is committed to launching self-driving cars next year.Processing a music transaction would be a walk in the park for him.Transaction costs that have been noted as problematic can be reduced by simply switching to a cheap, reliable, green blockchain.
So what would be the components of the MuziX?
– A registry for all players in the music industry that will provide a unique international identification number and link them to a dedicated e-wallet that will give them an overview of all their assets and revenue generated in the music ecosystem by type of use.
– An open database of contributors to music compositions with divisions that are registered on the blockchain and smart contracts that would define the terms allowing recording artists, DSPs or anyone else who wants to use the music to stream, sync or sample.
– A recording management tool based on a registered composition attached to it, which will register all involved collaborators – producers, performers and session players – on the blockchain, as well as the terms allowing the use of a recording for any purpose.
– A digital vault of recordings that will include a demo of the new recording to complete the registration of the composition.The demo recording will be analyzed by fingerprint technology to ensure that the composition is original and will allow sampling requests.The system will also allow wall uploads that can be used under the terms of smart contracts and recoding fingerprinting.
– This would create the same for each visual/audio visual work attached to a recording or each contributor.
– A switch that would connect all data to an API that would allow anyone who wants to use the copyrighted material personally or aggregate it to third parties under the terms of smart contracts.
In this new world, songwriters and publishers will be at the center of creativity with the tools to dictate the terms under which their compositions can be used.Recording artists and master owners will also be able to set their terms.
Creators could be instantly licensed to use stems to create new work and new income for the original creators.
The same goes for AI music creation tools that can give fans access to licensed elements of music they like.
Freedom of creation, transparency and immediate compensation as determined by music creators.
The infrastructure is already there, developing and taking shape.
Look carefully
NFT music landscape, visit the websites, join their Discord channels, read their roadmap and white papers, talk to them and connect the dots.Streaming is the main source of income for artists and songwriters.Because 80% of artists on Spotify have less than 50 listeners per month, they have to make money elsewhere – in the web3 and NFT space they can set their own terms and conditions for engaging with their fans.
“The music industry has invested heavily in metauniverse entities to try to harness current trends and align them with the old world.Social media and streaming platforms accept NFTs as a commodity for sale, not as a royalty payment utility.”
But as things stand, PROs, major labels and publishers are not part of that equation.
Instead, the music industry invests heavily in metauniverse entities to try to harness current trends and align them with the old world.
Social media and streaming platforms accept NFTs as a commodity for sale, not as a utility to pay royalties.
(And by the way, I have spoken to many web3 players and they are more than willing to play ball with the traditional music industry the right way.)
Musk could change that in an instant and invite his fellow crypto-natives from the music industry—disruptive players like the members of the Song Guild of America (powered by Hipognosis powered by Blackstone) and the other early adopters in the decentralized zone to create a better place for copyright holders.
Musk did it successfully with the auto industry, forcing them to develop electric cars.
In his TED talk, he described it as “an act of philanthropy.” He can do it for the music industry.If you build MuziX, they will come.
Just one tweet from Musk considering such a venture could finally unite the music industry in an attempt to save itself… from itself.The staggering amount of money that will be saved in IT development, data storage and administration costs by PROs, record companies, music publishers and DSPs can be allocated to better serving their customers and redistributing wealth in favor of creators of music.
Remember, without writers and musicians there is no music business).The authors and their respective publishers (if any) own the PRO and the change should start with them.
“Pros will have to get leaner.We don’t need them to be these big, bloated organizations.Their role in this new world, if they want it at all, should be to get the best deal for writers through legislation, negotiation and, most importantly, education.
In 1993, my first mentor in the music industry—Sam Trust, the legendary head of ATV—taught me my first lesson in music publishing: “Go to a gathering, spit on the floor, and don’t stop screaming until they pay you to shut up.” .
A lot has changed since then.
PROs have taken a giant leap to provide better service and transparency to their members.The problem is that they did it separately.Why? Ego.
Ego has led specialists to spend a lot of money recreating the same systems in territories around the world.From GRD to ISWC and beyond, they have tripped over and over again.
ICE, SACEM and MINT compete and steal customers from each other, all at the expense of their members/owners.All of the above are not equipped to handle the web3 space.Instead of creating an environment to support it, they’re trying to shut it down, just like they tried with Napster.
PROs can keep doing the same thing and expect different results (Einstein’s definition of insanity) or have CISAC pool all the valuable information stored on their members’ systems and use it as a global hub for all societies to debt collection – create your own version of “MuziX” with their members as co-owners.If they do not, other players will step in and enable their members to license rights through blockchain technologies.
Some of the players in the NFT music landscape are actively doing great work preparing this infrastructure to support the likes of Alan Walker as described in a recent MBW podcast.
Pros will have to get leaner.We don’t need them to be these big, bloated organizations.Their role in this new world, if they want it at all, should be to get the best deal for writers through legislation, negotiation and, most importantly, education.It can only work if they work together and there are some good smart leaders in the music industry.Putting ego aside will allow them to take the right action.
As for Musk? Let’s see what happens if and when he tweets this to his community.Music business worldwide.
