NFTs Will Empower Musicians to Take Back Control

NFTs and Musicians are creating a strong relationship and here is how:

2021 was a breakthrough year for NFTs (non-fungible tokens), with the sale of crypto assets totaling US$24.9 billion, up from US$94.9 million in 2020.

This surge in NFT sales can partly be attributed to the high demand for crypto art and collectibles. Fortunately, there were more than 11 million NFT art sales over the whole of last year. In fact, 2021 even saw Christie’s and Sotheby’s host their own NFT art auctions. This auction is creditable with driving contemporary art sales to an all-time high. 

But the latest artform which is purchasable as an NFT is music. NFT assets are either digital or physical, with blockchain technology being used to create a record of ownership. Given that NFTs can be coded so that royalty payments are made directly to musicians. This means there is a reduced dependency on intermediaries.

The Musicians Becomes the Priority 

For many recording artists, the involvement of third parties such as. record labels, management agencies, and streaming platforms only leave them with about 16% of the earnings. Further, this is the high levels of music piracy and copyright abuse. This way musicians can often find themselves struggling financially. 

However, using NFTs gives musicians the option to continue creating and recording music, with the blockchain acting as a record of immutable ownership. Tokenised music gives control back to the artist, the transparent and automated royalty arrangements eliminate the potential for fraud. 

Cutting out the middle-men from the picture offers financial benefits for lesser-known artists. According to Business Insider, platforms like Spotify only deliver royalties of $3,000 to $5,000 per million streams. Turning to NFTs also makes multiple streams of revenue available to musicians, \\. There are opportunities to sell other merchandise directly to fans such as clothing, concert tickets, CDs, vinyl records, and so on. 

Earning and trading royalties

With the immutable record of ownership that comes with using NFTs, artists can continue to release and share their music as usual. They will share the music with the reassurance that they will personally receive the royalties. Concert tickets can also be tokenized, using smart-contract enabled NFTs that are imbeddable into tickets. Basically, It helps to avoid the risk of fraudulent resales and black-market ticket dumps. 

Encouraging fan communities 

The democratization of music through NFTs goes further than the songs. At the beginning of 2021, Kings of Leon became the first band to release an album, When You See Yourself, as a series of NFTs. Since then, they have been able to sell exclusive album artwork and a limited edition version to fans. The Rolling Stones have also offered rare collectibles and unique fan experiences in the form of NFTs.