✖️ On utility and story-telling in a new public sphere
And: The metaverse primer; Bringing the live to livestreaming; Tencent Music loses label exclusivity; Meet Holly+; World's biggest music concert; Music rights confusion in NFT land
Music is one of the strongest forms of story-telling, it also has strong utility: it's useful in bringing people together; it's beneficial in its cathartic power; and it can be profitable for rightsholders. Music, however, rarely managed to put those two powers together to create massive value in a similar way to other art forms. Perhaps because of the fleeting nature of audio, or because of its ubiquity, what created value was rarely the music itself, but instead the future potential revenues associated with that music. Music's inherent utility and story-telling abilities, however, position it perfectly to explore the value of NFTs and the underlying blockchain technologies. Moreover, those technologies allow musicians, fans, and organizers to create new forms of public sphere. I explore this through the use-cases of royalties, community, and artefacts.
TECH
🇨🇳 China to order Tencent Music to give up music label exclusivity (Pei Li)
"Personally, I think this punishment falls short and is even a boon for Tencent. The acquisitions obviously would restrict competition in the market, and should have been vetoed."
You Yunting, lawyer at DeBund Law Offices
📖 The metaverse primer (Matt Ball)
The ever excellent Matt Ball has written a nine-part primer on the Metaverse. It’s one to bookmark and work through slowly.
🎠 Is 2021 the start of the great content reset? (Hanna Kahlert)
“The music industry value chain is already nearing this breaking point with streaming not providing enough remuneration to creators for them to make a living, and many new creators choosing to go via an independent route where they can produce, distribute, and directly market themselves. TV and film distribution has pivoted towards streaming services predominately owned by tech and media majors, which are investing significantly in increasing amounts of content. The creator boom is coinciding with a content investment boom to create a negative feedback loop – the more there is, inevitably the less valuable it becomes. This is a basic rule of market economic theory.”
👕 Spotify Fan Study: What it tells us about MERCH (SamLOUDD)
“2020 has shown that now more than ever, the future of the music industry depends on creativity, tech and innovation. Online stores are crucial as they allow artists to offer more sizes, designs and kooky merch options.”
♊ Meet Holly+ (Holly Herndon)
X
🟢 Proof of Green: How Ethereum 2.0 solves crypto’s energy concerns (Nat Eliason)
“Luckily, most of the pieces are in place at this point. Ethereum 2.0, the upgrade that brings Proof of Stake with it, is currently running alongside Ethereum 1.0 and the Ethereum Foundation is running every test they possibly can to simulate the merge and make sure it goes smoothly. The merge won’t happen until they’re confident it can happen without issues, and it’s unclear how long that will take.”
🎡 World’s biggest music concert planned to boost covid recovery (Ollie Williams)
“Hosting part of the event in Nigeria is especially poignant. Less than 3% of Africans have received a Covid-19 vaccination, and the World Health Organization (WHO) is worried that a third wave will cause havoc. "The worst is yet to come as the fast-moving third wave continues to gain speed and new ground," Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO's regional director for Africa said earlier this month.”
📈 After COVID pushed industry revenue down 3.8% in 2020, biz poised to rebound: PwC (Todd Spangler)
“To Bangah, the most surprising finding from PwC’s research was how fast consumers shifted media-consumption patterns amid the COVID crisis. “Consumers have been taking control of their entertainment experience for several years,” she said, “but the pandemic showed how quickly they can change their behavior.”
🎙️ EMDM online concerts in the pandemic: bringing the live to live streaming (Jesse Allison)
🙀 A Tribe Called Quest controversy brings music rights confusion to NFT land (Clyde Smith)
“NFTs indeed offer quicker resolutions to processes which can also benefit scammers desiring a quick exit. But a certain amount of what NFTfi news hits the press in the coming months and years will be the direct result of NFT and blockchain tech bringing industry-specific issues into the light. Unfortunately, the juxtaposition of “NFT” and “lawsuit” in headlines may cause general readers to assume that the NFTs were part of the problem. When, in fact, they actually may reveal and address issues with already existing standard industry procedures. As difficult as it will be for some to understand, NFTs may not just reveal such problems but sometimes offer solutions as well.”
MUSIC
Arushi Jain brings together the beauty of ambient, ragas and modular synths. It’s a stunning listening experience and a perfect example of how seemingly disparate musics and technologies can blend together beautifully.