✖ Mode of growth: NFTs, ownership, copyrights, blockchains
And: Zora's Auction House; Tomorrowland returns with "corona passport"; Apple holding back creator economy; Mental health guide for music sector; genre distributions; Short video evolves
NFTs offer two roads, a two-pronged fork if you will, to advance discussions about copyright and improve the way artists benefit and earn revenue from their work:
A world without copyright as we know it. No CMOs. Instead, everything is organized through blockchains. I’ll explain why this is a realistic possibility by drawing on the theories of economist Carlota Perez.
A world where NFTs and blockchains get incorporated into the existing copyright structures. For this we need metadata and the first indicators are out there that this will be developed.
TECH
🔨 Introducing Auction House (Zora)
Speaking of NFTs, Zora is opening up Auction House which will allow anyone to set up an NFT marketplace and take on the role of curator. Here’s what that looks like for a DAO
🧮 Apple is holding back the creator economy (Li Jin, Nathan Baschez, Yash Bagal)
“[W]e’ll unpack each specific Apple restriction, how it holds back creators, what Apple can do to fix the situation, and what the impact on the creator economy might be if they did.”
🥧 What the genre distribution of viral songs tells us about TikTok, globalization and cultural influence (Julie Knibbe)
“Looking at music charts and which genres break into the mainstream tells us a lot about cultural shifts within our communities … In this piece, we wanted to research and understand which new trends are influencing music consumption today. We analyzed genres among both global and local charts to picture current dynamics within the music industry.”
🚦 Short video evolves: TikTok paid promo and YouTube Shorts Fund (Stuart Dredge)
“Another trend in short video is the need to juice the creator economies with payouts. TikTok had its ‘creator fund’; Snapchat paid out $1m a day to people whose videos took off in its Spotlight feed; and now YouTube is launching a fund to encourage people to use its ‘Shorts’ feature.”
🤝 Collective earnings: Is revenue sharing the future of creator economy? (Anna Grigoryan)
“While I'm deep into the creator economy, I feel like everything is unicorns and roses. However, hard fact is that platforms still own the revenue and content.”
X
🇧🇪 Belgian Government Signals Return of Tomorrowland, But Will Require "Corona Passport" (Jason Heffler)
"We are delighted and grateful to hear that the Belgian Government has given a realistic perspective for large festivals in Belgium towards the end of the summer," Tomorrowland's statement reads. "This perspective is not only hopeful for Tomorrowland as an organization, but also for the more than 1500 suppliers and their staff."
🤯 Mind launches new mental health guides of the music sector (Chris Cooke)
“For too long mental health problems and other related issues like alcohol and substance use within the music industry have been neglected and even normalised. Mind’s new resource has been created with contributors from every corner of the music business to make sure the information is as useful and relevant as possible to anyone working within the industry, including artists, DJs, organisers, promoters, creative freelancers and other employees.”
🍿 Pop, Hip Hop, Latin are the most successful genres online (Viberate)
1,000 fastest-growing artists on Instagram amassed 1.66B new followers;
Pop dominates Instagram and Spotify;
Half of the top rising Latin artists come from Brazil.
“Additionally, we looked back two years to seewhether genres that had already been gainingmomentum pre-2020 are the most corona-proof – is there a noticeable trend?”
🧷 NIVA, ESA, Others Reveal Reopening Checklist 'Safe In Sound' (Eric Renner Brown)
“The COVID-19 pandemic has presented countless challenges to safely bringing audiences back to venues, safely getting production staff back to work behind the scenes, and safely returning artists to stages. We have created industry-specific guidance to put life safety first."
🙅♀️ 85% of women in the local music industry have experienced sexual harassment (Christie Eliezer)
“A new report on sexual harassment and bullying in the Australian and New Zealand music industries found 65% of the women surveyed experienced pressure to have sex and 85% experienced other forms of sexual harassment.”
MUSIC
I apologize to our readers who are not into hardcore rave music. But, I’ve been bouncing to Triple H (otherwise known as Shed) since his new EP came out last Friday. He calls it a “High Speed Hardcore 4 Tracker” and that’s exactly what it is.