Over the last two decades, we have seen more innovation in the music industry than we have seen since Napster. Napster is either credited with killing the music industry or revitalizing it, depending on who you ask.
It is undeniable that Napster transformed and revitalized the music industry, no matter which side of the argument you are on.
Moving on, the global recorded music market grew by 8.2% in 2019. In fact, it has grown for five consecutive years. Revenues increased in many markets, including nine of the top 10 global markets.
After increasing by 22.9% in 2019, digital music revenues have now accounted for more than half (56%) of the global record music market. At the end of that year, 341 million people around the world subscribed to streaming services.
Several music streaming services are available, including Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Google Play.
Those looking to enter the streaming space will not find many customers who haven’t already chosen a platform. Also, it would be impossible to compete in terms of customer value with these entrenched multi-billion-dollar behemoths.
Apple and Spotify both offer unlimited downloads and playback for $14.99 a month. This is a loss-leader strategy of Amazon and Google to keep users within their bundled ecosystems: “Listen to Amazon music so you will be interested in what we have.”
It is clear that streaming start-ups entering the music market cannot compete with unlimited play for less than the price of a cup of coffee. Not just entering the streaming music market, but completely overturning it, would be terrific.
Apple’s iTunes store usurped the record industry by using new technology, such as larger hard drives to store songs and faster internet to download them.
Altostream asks the question, “What is the leverage point in the streaming music space?” The answer will be to pay fair value to the three Cs of social music: Creation, Curation, and Community, and this will be accomplished by leveraging the Blockchain Network.
Curators or even Creators may pay community members in $ALTO to engage in promotional activities, incentivizing them to become Curators or Creators themselves.
Through the $ALTO token, the Community can create a new musical economic platform where the only limit is its own imagination.
Altostream offers users the opportunity to pay directly to the creators of their favourite music using blockchain technology. Using a Blockchain payment layer, Altostream will empower creators, curators, and listeners of Afrobeats in Nigeria with its ground-breaking platform.
Crypto smart contracts will enable Altostream to reward value fairly to Creators, Curators, and Community members on the platform.
The unique identifiers provided by the service providers, contributors, infrastructure providers, app developers, and validators, including listeners and artists, can be used by any music content platform to identify and log all contributions made by all stakeholders.
Curators share the Creators’ music and promote their works, while people in the community interact with them.
Furthermore, Blockchain has the potential to save the music industry billions by revolutionizing the rights and royalties process, ensuring that artists, writers, publishers, and everyone involved in the music value chain are adequately compensated.
The technology behind a distributed ledger is known as the blockchain. Blockchain enables us to store and manage data in a much more secure way.
Blockchain technology could simplify the management of rights and royalties across the music industry by providing a single, accurate version of the truth, regardless of territories and rights ownership details – ensuring everyone is paid timely and the right amount.
Averting lost revenues, delayed payments, and legal fees could save the industry billions. The industry must come together to establish a standard practice and establish trust in the technology and one another in order for this to happen.