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Recorded music supply chain with blockchain technology. 

Recorded music supply chain with blockchain technology. 

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Conference Paper
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This paper explores the impact of blockchain on the music industry with a focus on the implications technology can have for artists. By investigating the industry's supply chain, we argue that the on-demand streaming platforms (e.g. Spotify and Apple Music) have allowed consumers to easily access music products but have introduced a level of interm...

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Context 1
... P2P network promise to give the power back to Artists and eliminate the need for intermediaries, creating a direct bridge between the artists and consumers. As shown in Figure 3, the main expectation is that music creators publish their songs directly in Blockchain Networks, without needing intermediaries. After that, platforms powered by these networks would reach consumers, reducing transactional costs, allowing artists to access data generated by the transactions, and creating a more efficient system for royalty payments. ...
Context 2
... technology comes as a potential solution to the generators of monopolistic power for intermediators, namely distribution channels, information asymmetry and royalty payments. This P2P network promise to give the power back to Artists and eliminate the need for intermediaries, creating a direct bridge between the artists and consumers. As shown in Figure 3, the main expectation is that music creators publish their songs directly in Blockchain Networks, without needing intermediaries. After that, platforms powered by these networks would reach consumers, reducing transactional costs, allowing artists to access data generated by the transactions, and creating a more efficient system for royalty payments. Even though this would be the ideal scenario, note that, nowadays, most mainstream artists are under contract with one of the Majors, which prevents them to go straight from creation to the blockchain networks. While legal contractual issues are not within the scope of this paper, it is safe to say that this constraint would cause a blockage in this envisioned supply chain. One alternative would be not to eliminate the intermediates, but to change their roles within the chain. Thus, instead of acting as a revenue collector and representative of the musicians' intellectual property (IP), Record Labels would act as collectors of usage information, as well as continue to provide technical, production and marketing assistance according to the scope of each individual agreement. The responsibility regarding royalty payments, including the intermediates share, and the assurance of information transparency, would still be granted by the Blockchain ...

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... The authors also introduce how blockchain technology will solve such problems: transparent and fair royalty payments, direct communication between the artist and the fan, and a secure, immutable repository of music metadata [11]. The authors then discuss possible limitations to the implementation of blockchain within the music industry: issues of scalability and the need for cooperation across the industry. ...
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... Nevertheless, since its launch in 2015, UJO Music has not managed to tap into a mass market. In contrast, between 2015 and 2020, Spotify has increased its number of monthly active users from 91 million listeners to 345 million (Sitonio & Nucciarelli, 2018;Spotify Technology S.A., 2020). In the meantime, UJO Music's service has become unavailable. ...
Thesis
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... The aggregator, which are digital distribution companies in this case, have simplified the supply chain for smaller and independent artists, as the following chart shows. (Sitonio & Nucciarelli, 2018) The value chain for smaller and independent artists got simplified, but the abovementioned figures ...
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This thesis research paper aims to identify problems within the music industry that harm people involved in the creative process of songs/albums, such as audio content creators. The aim is to research whether blockchain technology holds the potential to solve these problems. An analysis of the value chain of the music industry is provided in order to determine whether the digitalization of the industry led to a simplification of the value chain. After the problem identification, an explanation surrounding blockchain technology is presented, which leads to the proposed solution(s)