The music industry has been disrupted by technology time and again, and blockchain is the latest game-changer. With Web3 tech and blockchain-based platforms, artists were promised more control over their music and fairer compensation for their work. Despite the excitement surrounding the potential of Web3 and its decentralized music space, the events that started unfolding late last year raised concerns for many artists.
With several NFT marketplaces effectively cutting out creator royalties, it became clear that the emerging ecosystem was not yet delivering on its full potential. This caused turmoil among the creators who had flocked to this brand-new World Wide Web built on peer-to-peer interactions, leaving them to question the sustainability and fairness of the system. Following the community backlash, artists were presented with bandaid solutions that allow them to bake a royalty enforcement mechanism into new collections.
Fast forward, blocklisting tools given to creators for enforcing royalties, which many would argue represent social and cultural rule, became weaponized by platforms fighting for market supremacy. Surely there must be an alternative way to change the system, one that doesn’t include artists feeding into a battle for profit that erupted between the dominating marketplaces.
There is a lot of room for further decentralization, so who is picking up the slack?
Releasing or “dropping” music in a new innovative format underpinned by blockchain tech, broadly known as NFTs or digital collectibles, means that artists can now distribute their music directly to their fans without the involvement of record labels or music streaming services, which often take a large cut of the profits.
Another significant benefit of Web3 for creators, one that’s key for providing a viable and long-term career solution, is the ability to receive fair and transparent royalty payments. In the traditional music industry, royalties can be challenging to track and calculate, leading to many artists being underpaid for their work. However, with blockchain technology, every transaction is recorded on an immutable ledger, making it easy to track and distribute royalties to the appropriate parties.
In short, creator royalties in NFTs guarantee that artists receive a share of the profits each time their art is sold on a secondary market, helping them build sustainable careers.
Offering musicians a potential alternative to the major label structure and enabling them to generate significant income in the long run, creator royalties have become a crucial aspect of the Web3 music concept.
However, a significant issue remains. The creator royalties are not inherently built into the NFTs but rather were introduced by marketplaces to entice artists to participate in the ecosystem. This implies that these royalties could be easily removed, just as they were added, presenting a challenge for artists who rely on them for their income.
The catchphrase "not your contract, not your community" has proven to be harshly honest in light of the alterations implemented by the major NFT marketplaces fighting for their share in the bearish market.
Empowering creators to lead and govern their own environments is a strategy for further decentralizing the Web3 ecosystem. This approach to innovating the music space would safeguard artists against unfavourable moves by centralized Web3 marketplaces and reduce the power imbalance that currently exists between creators and platforms that dominate the industry.
Gearing up to deploy TRAXX Studios, TokenTraxx is laying the groundwork for creator-led environments needed to cultivate a more equitable and transparent ecosystem that prioritizes the interests of artists and their communities.
Taking an artist-first stance, the team of musicians and innovators hailing from London are building a future where there is not one destination for Web3 music, but many, each one owned and operated by the community built on a Web3 proprietary technology purposely developed for the music industry.
TRAXX Studios is a white-label software that allows musicians and labels to run their own Web3 music business. By providing an innovative and robust infrastructure that allows artists full ownership of the smart contract, digital collectibles, and any other creation built within their TRAXX Studio launched on a protocol, TokenTraxx is ushering in a new era of creator-led environments.
In a bid to further decentralize the Web3 music space, the TokenTraxx team’s solution empowers creators to deploy smart contracts and marketplaces in their own environment, utilizing their own domain and infrastructure. Through their studio, artists are given absolute freedom to architect their ecosystem and safeguard themselves and their fanbase. Complete ownership of their minting studio will allow creators to tailor every aspect – from token supply to distribution, and most importantly, empower them to completely control their revenue.
Able to build direct and mutually beneficial connections with their entire audience from the very launch and without any intermediaries involved, musicians will soon be able to engage their fans where they are, instead of pointing them to a new marketplace.
Disclaimer: The author of this article is an advisor to TokenTraxx
The lead image for this article was generated by HackerNoon's AI Image Generator via the prompt "music studio.