Among a number of uses, Blockchain technology can simplify much of the unnecessary complexity that exists in the music copyright industry by promoting a free, public database of music copyrights. Issuing music metadata, songs and recordings, as digital assets on a blockchain can make them easily tradable and the use of smart contracts can automate much of the associated legal cobweb. Actors in the industry are expected to benefit from this technology which will make their contributions and resulting revenue streams transparent and immediate.

As Billboard reported, the technology offers solutions to multiple, previously intractable, problems of the industry, such as song rights monitoring and complex, but transparent and reliable, royalty distribution.

According to Bruno Guez, Founder and CEO of Blockchain company Revelator, he believes they have the answer:

We are continuing that fight. Our mission is to bring transparency to the industry, so that all players—from artists to managers to labels—have easy, quick and shareable access to data. The way we see it, the only way to fix the transparency problem is to give labels and artists a tool that assembles data automatically and makes it easy to view, understand, and share that data. So that’s what we did. Our platform allows artists to see their shares on-demand with one click. They no longer have to send a request to a manager, accountant, or record label and wait for a response. This increased visibility boosts trust between all those involved, and decreases friction between parties. In addition to seeing a unified view, the dashboard also provides real insights into the sales reports. Each report can be drilled down, so artists can see clearly which stores—virtual or physical—brought in the most sales, which ad campaigns were successful, and which songs fared better on which platform. Our platform levels the playing field by providing full transparency throughout the entire process of production, marketing and sales. It paves the way for collaboration and trust, as well as informed decision-making on the part of all those involved. Perhaps most importantly, it puts artists at ease, giving them the resources and peace of mind to keep making more great music.

Blockchain-based technologies (and colored coins in particular) can address two different classes of problems that currently plague the music copyright industry. Revelator sees the blockchain as the operating system for music rights management and distribution of assets.

Data Openness and Standardization

Once music metadata becomes standardized, publically available, free and not owned by anyone, it will be much easier to convince all involved parties to come on board and use it. Legal ownership of a piece of music will be immutably burned into the blockchain database, easily verifiable and indisputable.

Applications for parsing and analyzing this freely available music metadata will alleviate much of the headache currently involved in figuring who owns a piece of music.

Artists can directly see their revenue stream and facilitate direct contact with their fanbase.

Copyright Ownership and Transfer

Transferring and trading music copyrights will become as easy as sending an email and available on mobile apps enabling a secondary market of music rights to flourish.

Smart contracts will allow automatic and instantaneous payments to relevant parties, or expiring a copyright after a predesignated amount of time.

Speed

Fast, secure and intelligent transactions with instant confirmations, tracking, transparency and trust.

Security

Revelator smart contracts provide multi-signature rule based compliance, transfers or assignment of full or partial ownership of IP.

Efficiency

Efficient use of the block chain with an open protocol for rights management, distributed content and micro-payments.

Revelator Solutions

Registration

Issue copyright registrations as digital assets secured by multi-signature authentication.

Enforce multi-party terms and jurisdiction compliance rules

Control access to key functions, set permissions, limits & alerts

Monitor activity, track usage & sales, easily manage your data securely.

Distribution

License, sell or offer digital music assets to any distributor, publisher, label and consumer across all devices.

Implement time-limited digital music assets in direct to fan, ecommerce, mobile app or marketplace.

Use a single API for asset registration, transfer, delivery & payment.

Audit

View all transactions of an asset with full transparency throughout its lifecycle

Measure the ROI of your digital assets across all channels.

Leverage wallet discoverability to support secure send directly to the receiver’s wallet.

The first partner getting to work on Colu is Revelator, a cloud-based provider of sales and marketing intelligence for independent music businesses.

According to Amos Meiri, Colu’s CEO and co-founder: