The Kings of Leon are releasing a new album on Friday.
No big deal you are saying? Bands do this all the time?
Yes, they certainly do put out new music, but the release of this album is historic.
In fact, what this band is doing could potentially revolutionize the music industry…
The reason is this will be the first album ever released in the form of a non-fungible token, and will be part of a series called “NFT Yourself.”
The NFT phenomena has caught on big in the art world, but this is the first association with music. NFT’s are a new type of cryptocurrency that can hold assets like music, tickets and art. They operate on a blockchain, which is important because in these types of transactions the content can’t be hacked.
Entrepreneur, business owner and block chain expert Stephen Meade told us this is going to open the floodgates to similar type arrangements with other musical acts. “NFT’s will revolutionize many aspects of the creative industry,” he told VTPost.com. “Music especially, and to some degree art, has always been susceptible to duplication and fraud. With music there were issues around piracy, duplication, and royalty payments to the artist. Each created its own set of challenges. The creation of NFT’s, in conjunction with ‘smart contracts’, is proving you can change and improve all of that.”
For artists, it will help clean up the messy process of monetizing their music, and being able to make sure they have been compensated fairly.
“Think of it this way.” Meade said. “Imagine you could do two things with a song. First, you could assign a unique serial number that was only for that song. This means there would only be one version, or a hundred, or ten thousand, but regardless, each song would have a uniquely identified serial number. This means you could not duplicate or copy the song without the serial number being attached. For something like art work, this would be extremely valuable. For music, which is in a digital form, this helps with part of the problem- duplication and piracy. It does not help with distribution.”
The smart contracts Meade mentioned are going to give musical artists, directors of films, Studios, producers and creators in every medium so much more control over their content Meade explained.
“With your song, you could attach a set of rules that might accomplish different goals. Think of the movie ‘Mission Impossible,’ after the hero watched the video what happened? ‘This video will self-destruct in 5 seconds!’
Smart contacts can accomplish the same thing. You might write a rule that says: You can only share this song 5 times and then it won’t play. Or, you can have this song as part of a fan club, but IF you share it, the other person has to buy the song or join the fan club. Again, you have the chance to put creative controls on creative assets that have never been available before.”
Kings of Leon are going to open the floodgates, and as the creative class really gets their hands on this technology and strategy, it has the chance to be a total game-changer.
Add comment