Sure, everyone knows Bitcoin, but there is also Litecoin, Dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies. Moreover, the music business is about to get its own alternative currency, called Songcoin.

Bitcoin copycats are usually a joke, created on the Internet simply for fun as Dogecoin and Coinye . But a new cryptocurrency had appeared recently, which intends to improve financial transactions in the music industry. This newbie is called Songcoin.

The co- founder of Pimovi, the company which created Songcoin, Kasian Franks says that its goal is to lower fees for international transactions.

“If you use Songcoin to purchase a concert ticket, then we can work with ticket vendors to build in discounts so that if you use Songcoin, you’re going to get a cheaper rate, for example. It’s like using a specialized credit card that gives you mileage or discounts on certain things. We’re going to start by building a music recommendation system… and if people can use this system to discover music, we can put tip jars next to each artist”, Franks reported.

This interest in digital currencies looks more like a marketing play rather than a technological innovation.“Songcoin will be premined, with the premined proportion amounting to far less than 50%”, said Franks. The premine is also a part of promotion of Songcoin which includes initial giveaways as well.

The structure of Songcoin was originally supposed to be based on namecoin, but after negotiations they finally settled on Bitcoin. It almost copies Bitcoin, using the same SHA-256 proof-of-work, reward block, and difficulty.It is presumed that many musicians would accept an alternative digital currency, because the industry is limping along.

However, the company is sure that the world needs another clone of Bitcoin:

“The way I always answer that question is, why doesn’t the world have one credit card? The world has hundreds or thousands of them, serving different industries. They all build in incentives and various ways that their customers specific to their industries can benefit. We can use Songcoin to create further incentives for music fans.”

What is more, this month appeared one more music orientated digital currency – FUNK, but those two currencies use different political and technical approaches to helping the independent music economy. The emission of them symbolizes opportunity to make music economy more independent from the whole market.