Known as a music and digital innovator, Bill Campbell was formerly Senior Vice President, Global Digital Business, at Universal Music Group and Senior Vice President, US Digital Business Development at Sony Music Entertainment — two of the world’s largest music labels. During his tenure at Universal and Sony, Bill was responsible for content licensing, channel development, and strategic partnerships — work that included structuring global deals with streaming services such as Spotify, Apple, Google, and Amazon, as well as working with device manufacturers, telcos, ISPs, and start-ups to bring transformative technologies and business models to the labels and artists.

When we asked Bill what drew him to the eMusic Blockchain project, he said:

“Having started in the music industry as an independent recording artist myself, and then later as a music executive focused on how the industry could adapt to disruptive technology, I am keenly aware of the challenges artists and platform providers like eMusic face in today’s new music economy. What attracted me to eMusic in particular was their drive to treat the cause of today’s industry problems, not the symptoms. I see eMusic’s Blockchain project as a unique opportunity to help solve the supply-side issues that are restricting the earning potential for artists, as well as providing a much-needed degree of transparency for how they are being paid.”

This collaboration comes at a crucial time for eMusic as we expand beyond the retail role we’ve held for 20 years in providing independent music discovery and sales. Our goal is to build and support a new service that will use Blockchain technology to provide an alternative distribution option — one that acts both in service of the artists as well as the platform ecosystem (Spotify, Pandora, eMusic etc). As we’ve described in our Light Paper, the intention is to use Blockchain and Smart Contracts to cut out unnecessary “middlemen” and redistribute the savings to arrive at a 50/50 split payment between the platforms and the artists. The 50/50 split is an important point, as it increases incentives to the platforms for promotion and plays, leading to more exposure for the artists.

Adding to that vision, Bill will be building support for eMusic’s new platform within the artist, management and music label communities — building awareness and evangelizing the platform’s main artist-facing features, including royalty management, back catalog monetization, and direct crowdfunding. Bill will also act as a conduit for direct input from the artist community — serving to influence our product roadmap and feature development with new ideas crucial to artist success and new connection possibilities to fans.

“I’m excited to be building a platform that offers new value to artists via community- driven incentives, including fan rewards for loyalty, social sharing, event participation, purchasing and grass-roots promotion.”

We hope our members and followers will join us in welcoming Bill to our team. We are excited about the unique experience and relationships he brings to the team and are confident in his leadership and representation within the artist community.

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