You’ve probably heard of BitCoin. But have you heard of the Blockchain, the system that makes it, and potentially many more things, possible?
At its simplest, the Blockchain is a frictionless, global, secure online ledger. It promises to radically overhaul banking in general and payment systems in particular.
Earlier this month the British music industry heard from PledgeMusic founder Benji Rogers and musician Imogen Heap about “an all-new, uber-transparent system of tracking music rights and paying for usage” based on the Blockchain.
Rogers believes that “the music industry could make use of the blockchain for its own new music format: something he’s dubbed .bc, or ‘dot Blockchain’.”
“Such a format would start with the ‘minimum viable data’ (MVD for short): details of the recording ownership, an ISRC/ISWC/ISNI code; publishing information; mechanical rights information, performer data; global licensing rules; usage rights; lyrics and images; payment details; and contact information.”
According to Heap:
“It’s a way of enabling those services to use the music under the terms of the artists, the rights-owners. We need to set the ethical, technological and commercial standards around how our music is used… At the moment, artists, we’re first in and last out: first in with our work, and right at the end, if we’re lucky, we get some cash back.”
Rogers concluded with an aggressive timeline for the new format:
“My goal is to have it by the end of the first quarter of this year. It’s gonna be name of song, name of artist, ISRC… I’m optimistic that we can come up with a suggested minimum viable dataset relatively quickly. I think it needs someone to really take this by the scruff of the neck in terms of doing it… If we can’t agree what five or six pieces of information constitute fair trade, we should all quit, because it shouldn’t be that hard.”
Wait, there’s more! CB Insights claims twelve industries will be remade by the Blockchain:
- Banking
- Payments and money transfers
- Cybersecurity
- Academic records and academia
- Voting
- Car leasing and sales
- Networking and IoT
- Smart contracts
- Forecasting
- Online music
- Ride sharing
- Stock trading
My take: if this can work for music, it can work for visual media too. Imagine releasing your work into the wild and compensation following back from viewers directly to you. When this comes to pass, whole industries of intermediators will disappear and artists will speak directly with their audiences.