Blockchain is a revolutionary technology that has great potential to solve many of the fundamental challenges facing the music industry today. Blockchain technology including distributed, decentralized ledgers, smart contracts, and the ability to tokenize digital assets, is uniquely suited to address issues such as rights management, licensing, copyright ownership, royalty tracking and reporting and the primary and secondary ticketing markets for live events. Various aspects of the technology are currently being used to address some of these problems. Despite these current uses, blockchain adoption likely will be incremental and more evolutionary than revolutionary, at first. Longer term, blockchain technology could provide a more comprehensive solution for the industry.
While still somewhat early in its adoption, now is the time for the music industry to focus on blockchain, how it may disrupt the music industry and how participants can leverage that disruption. For more detailed information on these issues, see our paper on How Blockchain Technology Can Improve the Music Industry.