Blockchain in the Music Industry

1. Vezt
   • Purpose: Vezt uses blockchain to create a music rights marketplace where fans can invest directly in artists by purchasing royalty shares through an “Initial Song Offering” (ISO). The platform tracks royalties transparently using blockchain, ensuring artists and investors receive fair payouts from performing rights organizations, publishers, and labels. This empowers artists to finance their work while giving fans a stake in the music’s success.
2. Ujo
   • Purpose: Ujo employs blockchain, specifically the Ethereum platform, to build a decentralized database for music ownership rights and automate royalty payments via smart contracts. Artists can upload their work, self-publish, control licensing, and manage distribution, getting paid directly in cryptocurrency. This reduces reliance on middlemen and enhances transparency in rights management.
3. ROCKI
   • Purpose: ROCKI is a music streaming service that uses blockchain to fairly compensate artists and listeners alike. Powered by its ROCKS token, it distributes subscription revenue directly to artists based on a user-centric payment model, cutting out traditional intermediaries. Artists earn cryptocurrency for streams, fostering a more equitable payout system.
4. Open Music Initiative (OMI)
   • Purpose: OMI, a nonprofit with over 200 members, is working on an open-source protocol for the music industry using blockchain. Its goal is to create a standardized, transparent system for tracking music rights and royalties, ensuring all contributors are credited and paid accurately and efficiently.
5. Digimarc
   • Purpose: Digimarc integrates blockchain into its intellectual property licensing solutions, focusing on audio content. Its Digimarc Barcode technology fingerprints music with metadata to track sources, measure usage, and estimate payments, ensuring rights holders are properly compensated in a traceable way.
6. Blockpool
   • Purpose: Blockpool provides blockchain solutions tailored to the music industry, including creating digital tokens, smart contracts, and tracking licensing and intellectual property rights. It helps artists integrate blockchain across production, distribution, and management, as seen in its collaboration with Bjork’s Utopia album to manage royalties and incentivize fans with digital currency.
7. MediaChain (acquired by Spotify)
   • Purpose: Before its acquisition by Spotify in 2017, MediaChain developed a peer-to-peer blockchain database to share music data across applications and ensure fair artist compensation via smart contracts. Spotify now uses this technology to improve royalty payments and resolve rights holder disputes on its platform.
8. Audius
   • Purpose: Audius is a decentralized streaming platform built on blockchain, connecting artists directly with listeners. It timestamps uploaded content to secure ownership records and eliminates third-party platforms, allowing artists to monetize their work more efficiently while fostering a community-driven ecosystem.
9. Opulous
   • Purpose: Opulous uses blockchain to tokenize music as Musical Non-Fungible Tokens (MFTs), enabling artists to raise capital from fans without traditional financial institutions. Fans can invest in these tokens, which grow in value with an artist’s success and generate royalties, creating a new funding model for musicians.
10. ANote Music
    • Purpose: ANote Music tokenizes music catalogs on the blockchain, allowing investors to buy shares in royalty streams. This creates a new asset class for fans and investors, providing artists with upfront capital while ensuring transparent royalty distribution over time.
11. Music Protocol
    • Purpose: Music Protocol leverages blockchain to tokenize music royalties, making them accessible to a broader range of investors. Through partnerships like those with Plum Network and Terrace, it aims to enhance scalability and trading opportunities for music-backed assets in a Web3 ecosystem, streamlining royalty management and investment.
12. LimeWire (relaunched)
    • Purpose: Originally a file-sharing platform, LimeWire relaunched as a blockchain-based music NFT marketplace on the Algorand blockchain. Partnering with Universal Music Group, it allows artists to release Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), enabling fans to own unique digital music assets while artists retain more control over monetization.