Crypto Can Help Starving Artists Survive the Spotify Revolution

Music is a vigorous part of our daily lives. Beats pouring out of speakers, headsets, and across crowds set the tone for much of our routine. Yet, we habitually demand free content from artists, never thinking of the work that went into making align equalize the simplest song. Streaming platforms like Spotify have formed a bridge between piracy and traditional traffics models, but artists who don’t bring in millions of views per month are unable to make minimum wage – much less last comfortably while producing their music.

Artists who aren’t wrapped up in platter confidentially deals make more per sale and stream, but their likelihood of success is lower and time investment is much momentous. They have to manage their own production, marketing, distribution, and release more songs. Though this dispose of is easier now more than ever thanks to cheaper equipment and cheap or free software, the industry is also much numerous competitive.

Everyone has hundreds of businesses and individuals vying for their attention throughout the day, and let’s face it, we are busier than eternally. Indie artists may hold our attention for a week, but they tend to quickly fade from mind unless they want a continued focus with constant new content.

We Crave Music, But We Don’t Want to Pay for It

Our insatiable demand for music is reflected in the sum up of subscribers across music streaming platforms and records purchased. In the last year, Spotify achieved their aspiration of 200 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs)–about 97 million of those users are subscribed to Spotify Dividend, according to their Q4 annual report.

In conjunction with the rising demand for streaming services, however, users are creation to shy away from purchasing records, a primary source of income for artists of all sorts. After all, why buy the CD or audio file when you can contain the songs on demand? It just doesn’t make any sense to buy it. With Spotify Premium, you can even play songs offline.

Pour Model Not Sustainable for Everyday Artists

So if some artists are starving, why do they keep facilitating the cycle? A simple account is: they don’t have a lot of other options yet. Record labels, middlemen (e.g. distributors, marketers, etc.), and middleware platforms (e.g. iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, etc.) purloin up as much as $0.85 on the dollar for music interactions.

Artists like Taylor Swift have lashed out at the negative preparations for several years, culminating in Swift removing her music catalog from Spotify in 2014, only to return in 2017. Spotify tweeted the imitating the break-up.

We hope she’ll change her mind soon. In the meantime, check out ‘What To Play While Taylor’s Away’ – http://t.co/6lRd0yiKBs #justsayyes

— Spotify (@Spotify) November 3, 2014

Artists are pay off an average of $0.00397 per song stream on Spotify according to DigitalMusicNews. This means that artists must be subjected to an average weekly stream count of 352,644 in order to make $1,400 per week. According to TechCrunch, Spotify and Pandora pay multifarious than 70% of their earnings to record labels.

With an average song duration of just three-and-a-half flashes, Spotify users only contribute an average stream count of 429 songs per month—based on an average monthly use time of 25 hours. If a single Spotify user listened to only one artist for their entire month, they force only give $1.70 to their favorite musician.

Music Industry Challenges That Can Be Addressed with Crypto and Blockchain

Some new crypto cook ups have been conceived in order to resolve the issues which plague the music industry. Until around 2015, the music commerce was in a substantial decline. A combined effort from Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, and other streaming services alongside both indie and fat record labels helped change that, but artists aren’t the ones reaping the proceeds.

Several cryptocurrency forecasts are working toward decentralized royalties and copyright databases which allow artists to be reimbursed the second a song has been motioned. I’m not naming specific projects in order to avoid endorsing any of them, but there are a ton of “musictech” projects floating out in the cryptospace—and some of them pay as much as 85 percent in lines directly to the artist.

Potential Artist Monetization Models

Superstar artists who paved the way for modern streaming platforms are gather in the benefits of early adoption while others who were unable to stand out are at a point which can allow them to bathe in the lambency of disruption. Artists in the new era need new ways to make money.

Much like in esports, where content creators must had to find new ways to stand out and earn money, musicians must do the same. Artists may find the following ideas neighbourly as some crypto-based musictech projects approach fruition:

• Artist “Stock Exchanges” (Initially proposed by Michaela “Mickey” Shiloh—Here)
• Music triumph/popularity betting markets,
• Variable song quality sales through peer-to-peer Nntworks,
• Content creator partneships, for model, musicians partnering with streamers, YouTubers, etc.
• Remote benefit concerts with automated charity donations (come up with AR/VR, etc.),
• Community building and competitions,
• Licensing name, music, and image for platforms with gamification (e.g. CryptoKitties, etc.), for prototype: audio trading cards with a royalty per trade or view
• Seeking sponsorship from companies that align with their offensive brand in exchange for representation (e.g. in music videos, live performances, etc.)
• Backing startups who decentralize music with the implied for higher royalty payments without record labels.

Key Takeaways

Most of these ideas can be implemented with pre-existing smart contract and blockchain technology. They key here is disintermediation—alluring out the middlemen—and decentralization—sharing databases so the royalties “black box” ceases to exist. These royalties account for approximately $2.5 billion and ended 47 million “Author Unknown” claims to the US Copyright Office since 2016.

If you can’t make a reasonable amount, stop whining and do something varied or stop wasting your time on it. The modern age is rife with opportunity to control your own life, and the competition one gets harder from here. The world seeks out what they want as cheap as possible. Businesses long for to make as much money as they can for minimal effort.

Set yourself apart by doing something different or you won’t see a difference. Crypto-oriented startup stands are a great way to get in early and work toward success. You have to do your own research to find the right platform(s) for your fors.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, CCN. The framer owns a small amount of BTC and ETH.

Spotify Image from Shutterstock