Artists have been collecting physical awards for their sales (and now streams) achievements since the 1950s: gold, platinum, diamond etc. Now Universal Music Germany is adding a digital twist to the idea. It is working with German industry body BVMI and web3 startup Twelve x Twelve on a scheme that will complement (not replace) the […]

In the music industry there is excitement and scepticism alike around ‘the metaverse’ but how do games developers feel about it? The post 45% of games developers are still sceptical of the metaverse appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

There are so many ‘web3 artist accelerators’ being launched at the moment, soon we’ll need a web3-artist-accelerator accelerator to help the good ones stand out from the crowd. The post Mastercard uses Polygon for its new web3 artist accelerator appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Solana is a public blockchain and crypto wallet that is used by a number of music-oriented web3 platforms, like Audius and Single Music amongst others, and the users of those platforms. The post Solana blockchain suffers widespread attack, with wallets drained appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Web3 music marketplace Serenade has partnered with Warner Records UK to launch “digital pressings”: The post Serenade launches chart-eligible “digital pressings” appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

New buzzy web3 things like NFTs and DAOs, are – on balance, we think – A Good Thing. DAOs, for instance, will likely provide a platform to create a “fan-club+” experience – take a look at artist RAC’s experimental racOS DAO The post Web3 troubles provide useful learning opportunities appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music […]

If you think there’s been some stinging fan backlashes against NFTs in the music world, you should see some of the almighty hoo-has in the games industry. The post Minecraft NFTs: ‘Not something we will support or allow’ appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Napster has been acquired again, this time by two companies from the web3 sector: Hivemind and Algorand. The post Napster gets bought again, this time with a web3 pivot in the works appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

We’ve seen various attempts in recent years to improve the quality of metadata identifying the writers of songs and their splits. Session, for example, has created tools to encourage songwriters to start creating this metadata from the earliest stage of their working process. Another startup has emerged today with its own ideas. Family in Music […]

It will be working with artists Lil Pump and KSHMR to sell ‘S-NFTs’ – a term they’ve coined to describe NFTs sold as ‘securities’ under US financial regulations The post Opulous to sell ‘S-NFTs’ for artists Lil Pump and KSHMR appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

In August, Serenade announced itself as the latest startup looking to help musicians and music brands create and sell NFTs. It promised to be both accessible – fans could pay using regular debit and credit cards – and environmentally sustainable through its use of an ‘eco-friendly’ blockchain called Polygon. Since then, Serenade has worked with artists including […]

Since the earliest days of blockchain hype in the music industry, electronic music artists have often been the first to experiment with the technology: particularly those that are most tech-savvy and who control their rights. There are two new examples this week. First, trance legend BT is releasing what’s being described as “the world’s first […]

Throughout Music Ally’s history one principle has held true: if there’s a whizzy new digital platform of some kind, Snoop Dogg will be on it before 99.7% of other artists. The post Snoop Dogg is building a mansion… in virtual world The Sandbox appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Rcrdshp launched its first collection in August and sold out in a matter of hours, before repeating the trick with its second drop later that month. The post Rcrdshp raises ‘multi-million’ seed round to make more NFTs appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

British startup Jaak was part of the first wave of firms trying to put blockchain technology to use in the music industry. It was part of the first Techstars Music accelerator in 2017, and launched a pilot with partners including WMG, Warner/Chappell, BMG and Global Music Rights the following year. Founder and CEO Vaughn McKenzie-Landell was also part of the […]

Async is a startup focused on ‘programmable art’ that is capable of changing over time. Oh, and it’s also part of the blockchain wave, with that art able to be bought, resold and interacted with. It has generated more than $1m in sales for digital artists since its launch in February 2020. Now the company is […]

The music industry has got quite… well, let’s say “excited” about Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFTs) in the last couple of months. The headlines have been breathless and the figures eye-popping. Grimes sold $5.8m of NFTs in 20 minutes! 3lau sold 33 NFTs for $11.6m! The former boss of T-Mobile US paid Steve Aoki $888,888.88 for an NFT […]

Anyone looking for a reminder not to get too carried away with the NFTs bonanza would do worse to look at the fate of some of the blockchain music companies from a few years ago that had big ambitions. Big Neon for example, whose founding team included Ticketfly co-founder Dan Teree and cryptocurrency expert Riccardo […]

We’ve been writing about NFTs (nonfungible tokens) recently, and thinking about their potential for the music industry. But other entertainment sectors are doing the same, games in particular – the pioneer industry in terms of creating collectible digital items that people are willing to pay money for. What they’re paying money for this week are […]

Ditto CEO Lee Parsons sparked some heated online discussions last month with his ‘There’s never been a better time to be a recording artist‘ article. He claimed that over 500 of the distributor’s artists earned more than $50k from streaming in 2020, and over 50 earned more than $100k, as part of an argument that […]

Bitfury Surround says it is about to provide a platform that can take all your data, attach it to the blockchain, and standardise it. Then, you can look at this vast, interconnected set of data and figure out, for instance, the money you’ve not recovered, and who you need to get it from. Or figure out who to market to […]

Remember the heyday of the early blockchain+music hype, and visions of a future where successful artists would ‘tokenise’ themselves, with their own cryptocurrencies, with oodles of riches for everyone? Well, we’re still waiting for those oodles. Maybe Lil Yachty can provide them. He’s working with ‘social money platform’ Fyooz, which specialises in getting influencers and celebrities […]

We’ve been following the progress of blockchain music streaming service Audius with interest: from early debates about whether its ‘censorship-resistant’ nature would be a copyright-takedowns nightmare, to its funding rounds in August and October this year. Now the company has given news site Coindesk a new figure on its scale: it’s attracting between 30,000 and 50,000 unique users a day. Note, the monthly […]

It seems to be the week for music streaming to meet virtual reality startups. VR firm MelodyVR announced plans to acquire Napster, and now Tidal is making an investment in VR company Sensorium Corporation. It’s not a traditional deal though: Tidal has bought $7m in tokens issued by Sensorium – yes, that’s Music Ally’s blockchain […]

We first wrote about startup Audius when it raised a $5.5m funding round in August 2018 for a service that was described as ‘SoundCloud on the blockchain’. When it launched its public beta a year later, it was interesting, but its ‘censorship-resistant’ philosophy created some headaches in the potential for unauthorised uploads, and the difficulty […]

Music Ally has done its time in the blockchain trenches: our reports on the technology’s potential for music from 2016, 2017 and 2018 are evidence of that. One of the conclusions we’ve drawn: the ‘sweep away the middlemen’ startups that only work for artists who control 100% of their rights without even a collecting society in sight are not, in […]

In November 2019, WMG’s head of innovation, recorded music, Scott Cohen told Music Ally that he was interested in the ways that blockchain technology could create new value for the industry. One example: digitally-scarce collectibles that fans would buy and show off. Fast-forward six months, and one of the startups in the latest cohort for […]

Back in May 2019, we caught on early to something new from distributor Ditto Music called Bluebox. It was described as “a platform to streamline the music industry supply chain and bring modern technology to an industry lacking transparency, framework, and structure” with blockchain involved somehow. Eight months later, Bluebox has been officially unveiled. It’s now described […]

“VR is shit! It’s shit but it doesn’t have to be. Certainly the hardware’s not all the way there yet, it’s quite bulky and if you put it on for an hour or so you’re going to get a pretty raging headache and neck ache. But the real problem is the content is shit. The […]

Ripple Labs is one of the bigger companies in the crypto / blockchain space, with its payment protocol and XRP cryptocurrency. Now its director of product Craig DeWitt has revealed plans for a personal project focusing on music, called xSongs. It’s a familiar (and thus far, unsuccessful) idea in blockchain music: a platform for artists to […]

Music Ally reported on the launch of decentralised streaming service Audius in September, and wondered whether its “censorship-resistant” features (or as one report put it, ‘anti-takedown) might cause problems if people started uploading copyrighted music. A few weeks on, and other journalists are asking the same question. The Verge goes in strong, describing Audius as “a […]

Music Ally first wrote about blockchain-music startup Audius just over a year ago, when the company raised a $5.5m funding round (a traditional one, not an ICO) for a platform described as ‘SoundCloud on the blockchain’. The following month, it revealed that its advisers included Beatport CEO Robb McDaniels; former Avicii manager Ash Pournouri; Pandora head of artist product Shamal Ranasinghe; […]

As expected, B2B digital-music firm 7digital has appointed eMusic boss Tamir Koch to its board of directors, alongside entrepreneur David Lazarus. The move comes as the company tries to raise funding to stave off the threat of administration at the end of July. Koch will be the non-executive chair of 7digital’s board, and has reiterated his ambitions […]

Earlier this week, Facebook announced a new blockchain-powered currency called Libra, and a digital wallet for it called Calibra. Spotify was among the companies backing the plans by becoming a founder member of the independent Libra Association. Now Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has been talking about his hopes for Libra, including the suggestion that it […]

The recent leaks were correct: music-streaming Spotify is on board as one of the first backers of Facebook’s new Libra cryptocurrency. The social network will launch a cryptocurrency called Libra in 2020, complete with a wallet developed by the company’s new Calibra subsidiary. And backing all this is The Libra Association, which Facebook says will […]

Dance artists RAC and Goldroom (aka André Anjos and Josh Legg) have launched a new label called Minerva Music. Its twist: it has put blockchain technology at the centre of its distribution strategy. The company is working with revenue-tracking startup Stem, as well as blockchain firm Ujo Music. RAC is no stranger to the latter, having […]

Benji Rogers was one of the earliest people in the music industry talking about the potential of blockchain technology, and he founded a company – DotBlockchain – to try to deliver some of that potential. Now he’s moving on. “As of today, I will be departing the epic and amazing company that I co-founded, DotBlockchain […]

AudioCoin, Musicoin, Opus, Aventus, Musiconomi and more… Music Ally has written about a variety of startups exploring the crossover between blockchain technology and the music industry, with several of these companies having launched their own ‘tokens’. Now there’s a site for keeping track of AND trading those tokens. It’s called (sensibly enough) MyMusicTokens, and is billing […]

Israeli music/tech firm Revelator is launching a new spin-off called Original Works, whose ambitions include processing and paying out streaming royalties to musicians and rightsholders on a daily basis. The post Revelator’s Original Works to handle rights and daily payments appeared first on Music Ally. Source: Music ally

Lead: A new year and a new slate. To kick off the year, we speak to marketers around the business and around the world about what tools they think will be indispensable and what trends they believe will shape 2019. From AR filters and scarcity to algorithmic personalisation of playlists, the continued rise of Latin […]