Plus , most importantly , rent is paid in dollars and cents , not bitcoin or MCI .
MUSICONOMI ’ S DAN PHIFER
But what if a blockchain-based music industry didn ’ t have to use crypto-currencies ? And remember Howard ’ s comment that the major labels and publishers that “ have the necessary rights who might be able to create that scaled marketplace are the ones who are least likely to enter into it ?” What if labels , publishers , and PROs did buy into a blockchain-based solution ? That , too , is taking shape , but the people behind this approach don ’ t want to disrupt the industry by casting aside these intermediaries ; they want to empower them .
The Dot Blockchain Media ( dotBC ) initiative is headed by CEO Benji Rogers , the entrepreneur , technologist , and musician who founded PledgeMusic . With dotBC , Rogers ’ team is developing a new blockchain-based file format , . BC , which would replace WAV files as the industry ’ s digital standard . These . BC files would exist on a blockchain , could be uploaded to streaming services like Spotify , and work as both audio files and smart contracts with embedded information on rights holders and more . If adopted as the new standard , Rogers says dotBC
MUSICONOMI ’ S BRIAN BYRNE could solve major issues , such as broken metadata , which dam up the revenue stream , thus making royalty collection more transparent and efficient . As well , the dotBC proposal doesn ’ t want to convert the industry to some crypto-currency , but instead wants to use blockchain to improve the flow of dollars and cents .
But maybe the most important part of dotBC is the bridge it has built with the industry . dot- BC has enlisted as funding and development partners the Canadian collecting society SOCAN , as well as the SOCAN-owned business-to-business music technology provider MediaNet . Additionally , dotBC has partnered with digital rights management platform Songtrust , and digital distributors CD Baby and FUGA . Rogers is also having conversations with a number of labels , including the majors . He says these rights holders could see their revenues grow exponentially by converting to a more efficient blockchain-based system that doesn ’ t use cryptocurrency .
“ The way I view it is , there ’ s a PRO that we ’ re in conversations with and they have to track over four billion lines of information and figure out which fraction of a penny goes to their artist or someone else ’ s artist . So can you imagine having a crypto economy in which you had to pay a mining fee to figure out four billion things a year ?” offers Rogers . ( A “ mining fee ” is charged to users for bitcoin transactions .) “ Each one of those things could have 17 or 20 branches , right ? So , what I think a lot of the blockchain enthusiasts on the crypto-currency side view as the future of money , that ’ s all true – it could all happen – but not if you can ’ t get the system operational in the first place because it ’ s too expensive to run .”
The theory goes , if everyone – PROs , publishers , labels , songwriters , streaming services , music supervisors , etc . – is working from the same blockchain , the smart contracts ( i . e . . BCs ) would greatly improve rights attribution . Transactions , whether it ’ s streaming royalties or sync licences , become more reliable because everyone is working from the same updated information . The industry would no longer be relying on separate closed databases of songs and rights with conflicting and / or incorrect information . And because smart contracts allow the more accurate data to be paired with other information , such as terms of use , the potential is there for things like sync licencing to become much more efficient .
So Rogers envisions a searchable blockchain-based database of . BC files ( i . e . songs ). Every file would contain all the rights information associated with the song .
Now imagine a music supervisor wants to licence “ Song A ” for use in a TV show . Currently , they seek out the publisher and the label and get permission from each separately . Working on the dotBC blockchain , they could instead “ ping ” the file with a message that says , “ I want to licence ‘ Song A ’ for use in ‘ TV Show B .’” Instantly , the necessary rights holders could grant , deny , or amend that request in the same . BC file on the blockchain . It streamlines the licencing process because permissions are handled in the same bundle .
Remember , Rogers adds , most people who want to use music for whatever purpose don ’ t understand the complicated web of rights that exists . “ They just say , ‘ I want to give money to this ,’ and the music industry makes that really hard today because there is no public place to go look for it . Now imagine if , or when , we ’ ve got 63 million . BCs when SOCAN , MediaNet , Songtrust , FUGA , CD Baby , and all of our other partners come together and all those songs are in . BCs . Now imagine when you ’ re that person wanting to licence that song , there is a little button that opens up and says , ‘ In order to licence , push this button ,’ and you send a message within the song – using the dotBC free software – that says , ‘ Hey , I would like to do a deal with you .’ The admin to that song – whether they be the publisher admins or the recording side – can message back and can come to an agreement .”
That is phase one for the dotBC project . Phase two , Rogers says , “ is you can build into that song a whole bunch of pre-agreed licences . So this way , a game developer in Taipei , if she decides she wants to use your song in a game , she doesn ’ t have to call eight people to ask for permission . She sends a request of the song and the song can send an agreement back and that agreement is stored and tracked , and its changes are tracked in the blockchain and all those variables .”
Turning to streaming , currently , a service like Spotify receives closed digital music files , like MP3s , from labels and distributors . For royalty purposes , those digital files are only as good as the metadata ( i . e . digital information ) that travels with them . If that metadata is wrong or incomplete , it results in wrong or missing payments . To correct or update the metadata , the file needs to be pulled out , amended , and put back in the streaming service . By using dotBC ’ s envisioned blockchain , and . BCs instead of MP3s or WAVs , streaming services wouldn ’ t have to worry about missing or incorrect metadata . All rights holders would have permission to view , amend , and approve the information in the . BC file itself . This would ensure the rights information is up to date , because everyone is working from the same file on the blockchain .
“ If I ’ m honest , this is the way in which the Spotify lawsuits disappear . Because if you look at the nature of these rights-side lawsuits , it ’ s , ‘ We don ’ t know who the publishers are and so we can ’ t send them a notice of intent ,’” says Rogers . “ Well imagine if you sent a notice of intent to the song and the song had the publishers within it and you ’ re basically done . That way , Spotify is saying , ‘ Look , at this time on this date , this was the instruction we sent .’ So these things all become possible if you know who the humans are , how to contact them , and how to pay them . The other thing about the dotBC proposal was that it was designed to give the PROs , the labels , the publishers , and the people who are really invested , as well as individual songwriters and artists , the ability to control their destiny in a digital way .”
40 • CANADIAN MUSICIAN