Not Fully Convinced On NFTs For Music...Yet!

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Music NFTs

So I've been thinking about many things this week and one of them was NFTs with music. I understand there are a couple of websites on Hive like NFT Tunz and Blocktunes where you can make them.

NFT stands for "Non-Fungible Tokens" and are basically a unique copy of something you wish to sell. You can prove ownership of the track or only have a limited number of the copies of something for sale that can't be minted elsewhere.

@thelogicaldude gave a good overview in his comment - thanks for clearing it up mate!

From what I gather about how NFTs would work for musicians, you'd create a limited number of copies of a track, say 100, and put them up for sale solely for this reason.

Scarcity

However, the hurdle I'm struggling to overcome is if you release your music on to outlets such as Spotify and Apple Music through a distributor, what would the benefit of making a limited number of copies be if someone can just download the track and redistribute it themselves?

I was having a quick chat with @darrenclaxton in the NFT Discord earlier and I can see a potential use case where you'd make a VIP (Variation In Production) of a released track that you only want to have a limited number available for your fans.

This then creates that "scarcity" of only being 100 copies available.

You can also release a brand new album or track solely for NFT purposes if you have a big enough fanbase and create a hype around it.

For me, I don't think I've ever sold close to 100 copies of my entire catalogue combined over the last 10 years so probably don't need to worry about scarcity too much 😂

Most Potential?

Where I see the most potential and use case for NFTs are for tickets to events so people can prove their entry and that would then stop illegal ticket re-selling and 3rd party ticket touts scamming punters.

We'll see, I'm not fully convinced yet to mint my own NFTs but to prove ownership, NFTs could be worth doing so your creations are timestamped.

Happy to have an open discussion in the comments about this from fellow musicians, music fans and anyone who has something to say about NFTs!

Let me know

Nicky

P.S. enjoy some drum & bass! The Space Adventure EP tunes are coming along nicely, just a couple more to finish off and will be releasing this one in the next couple of months! Can't wait!



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You raise some great points. Is there a limit on how many copies you can make? it seems like it would be the same as when you put a recording out, where you have different releases.
I am very new to NFT's. I also write songs and have a band. It would be nice to find a way of doing this

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(Edited)

Is there a limit on how many copies you can make?

As far as I can tell, when you go to create (or mint) your NFT, you decide how many copies you want to make of it there and then. After that, you can't mint any more (or at least you shouldn't otherwise the "scarcity" thing goes out the window!)

For example, you have finished the mastering of your track and instead of distributing it to Spotify etc, you can just decide you only want to release 100 copies of that specific version of the track.

You can do that via NFTs. When you go to upload your track on the NFT site, you select the number of copies to release and then pay the fee to have the NFTs minted. These then become available to buy on your profile on the site, which is connected to the blockchain.

If your fellow band members are on Hive as well, you can probably set them up to receive royalties from sales of the NFT too.

it seems like it would be the same as when you put a recording out, where you have different releases.

Yes, this is what I think would be a good use case of NFTs where you have your main release and maybe make a limited number of copies of a variation of the track that is only available as an NFT.

There's NFT Tunz and BlockTunes which are build on Hive but there's also Stacks and Byzantion on Bitcoin for minting NFTs. I'm still in the researching phase too!

Hope that helps!

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Thanks for the great reply. I am going to look more into this

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I cannot speak for NFTTunz, but if it's built using the same NFT frame work as the other Hive-Engine NFT marketplaces, then yes, you will be able to put up like 100 copies or something like that. You can do that on the https://hivelist.org/nfts marketplace as well.

For @blocktunes, the NFT collection there is on Binance Smart Chain and has different features. On there say in the OpenTunes collection, you would create a one of a kind rare piece or something to sell, or there is also the Royalty Free Licensing collection and the Creator Copyright collection that actually gives purpose and use case for music NFTs. These basically create transferrable licenses for the music, as I explained in that other comment.

You can do this I know on the Hivelist NFT marketplace using the Limited Reproduction Rights license as well, as far as the Royalty free stuff... and on NFTShowroom, but that's not my marketplace, lol.

There is more to what NFT's are supposed to be for than silly little jpeg images. I am really trying to bring focus to that by using the licensing and certificate of authentication kind of stuff.

However, the hurdle I'm struggling to overcome is if you release your music on to outlets such as Spotify and Apple Music through a distributor, what would the benefit of making a limited number of copies be if someone can just download the track and redistribute it themselves?

So to answer this... People are not legally supposed to redistribute music they purchase from Spotify or Apple Music. You can sue the pants off of them if you catch them doing it. The benefit of making something like a limited release is to bring back the art of it all. Back in the day, before the digital world really destroyed the art of music, you used to purchase CDs which in many cases had some really cool artwork and stuff like that with it. Same with vinyl.

So with a limited or single edition NFT, get creative with it and make a really cool visual video that goes with your music or something like that. For example, the videos from @groove-logic on the https://blocktunes.net/nft-collection/opentunes-collection/ Open Tunes collection are single edition video NFTs. I will never reproduce those anywhere. So those videos are the only versions available outside of my computer. It could also be a rare performance bootleg recording or something like that. Again, get creative with it. That's the whole point.

The digital world turned music into a product vs art, I intend to change that.

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Thanks for going into this a lot deeper mate. Really appreciate it, I see now that there's more to it than just a jpeg and understand the creative licence aspect can provide a lot of benefits and the necessary protection for creatives to timestamp their work and copyright it.

People are not legally supposed to redistribute music they purchase from Spotify or Apple Music. You can sue the pants off of them if you catch them doing it

Yeah for sure. I know they aren't legally allowed to redistribute on Spotify etc. I didn't word it rightly at the time. I have seen many websites where people just upload an mp3 of even tunes from little old me which get reported but there's another that pops up. I guess that will never go away in any case with people just copying files. One thing to ask is how can an mp3 that's released as an NFT be protected against someone who can find the source file and download it? Is that possible?

I am an old school person as well and have my old CD collection along with some limited edition mp3 of vinyl releases that weren't available elsewhere. So I love the mission of going back to how it was before and the artist can be creative, take whoever listens to their music on a journey.

I will have a look at Blocktunes as well and test it out as it's all new to me and I'm going through ideas of what I can do.

Do you have any intention of integrating with lightning network/Bitcoin as I gather you can make NFTs on there too?

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At this point the only Bitcoin integration is the payments. No lightning yet but looking for a plugin. For now it’s BSC and Hive. Was going to do Polygon but backed off of that for now. It’s enough to teach Hive and BSC.

As far as the file protection, the Page for the NFT would not allow downloading from the page by right clicking. Right clicking is actually deactivated on the media to protect it. You can choose to store the files on our server for faster speeds and protection or on IPFS for decentralization but WAY slower run times.

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You might want to contact CoinCorner as they have integrated a plugin to accept payments via lightning which can be added to different products. I'm planning on integrating it to my music site and we've used it on our Bitcoin focused one too. Works well!

Thanks for the info on the file protection, that's good. I remember dsound used IPFS back in the day and had playback issues but I heard you could also access the source file if you knew where to look. I'll register an account on BlockTunes site 😃

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It’s really hard to keep people who know how to look to from ripping the file. We have done everything we can to help protect it. It’s the nature of of the public open decentralized beast. You are never going to completely stop theft.

That was one plugin on my radar. Been looking at a couple of others too.

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I think music as an NFT is certainly some foreign and uncharted territory right now! It’s intriguing but there is some hesitation on many parts for sure. Should be a cool concept once things get to a more popular cadence I think!

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Yeah thats why I made this post as well to get the discussion going and hear from those who are already in the NFT game to see their thoughts and learn from it all! Getting ideas on how to apply it for my music productions too

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I am so on the fence about NFT's and cannot get over the mental hurdle of "we're doing this because we can." I won't go into a huge diatribe about them other than to say I see their use in areas, primarily art and, to an extent, gaming.

In the realm of music I could definitely see an NFT being used as a reward, gift, or prize. I also do understand the concept of "forced scarcity*, but that just tweaks me the wrong way completely.

Being able to prove ownership is definitely a good thing. I'd certainly like to be able to prove home ownership with an NFT instead of having to take care of a fragile piece of paper. Just as long as I don't lose my crypto wallet. Now that'd suck.

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Being able to prove ownership is definitely a good thing. I'd certainly like to be able to prove home ownership with an NFT instead of having to take care of a fragile piece of paper. Just as long as I don't lose my crypto wallet. Now that'd suck.

This is literally the best copyright there is!

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Good input as always Victor! I think the ownership side is probably the biggest selling point at the moment but fan club tokens could also be a good way forward. I think they are doing that with NFT tunz at he moment.

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Hi everyone it's @iamdarrenclaxton here from TUNZ (@darrenclaxton account isn't used anymore) Thanks for mentioning us in your post Nicky, I gave you a juicy upvote for that.

If I could chick my 2 pence worth in to this discussion that would be much appreciated?

I totally understand the points you have raised in your post and can see where you're coming from an artists point of view. I was brought on board at TUNZ as a musicians and songwriter to sit on both sides on the fence in relation to use cases in the Music NFT world, and how this will benefit the music community as a whole.

Firstly, as @thelogicaldude states, There is more to what NFT's are supposed to be for than silly little jpeg images. I am really trying to bring focus to that by using the licensing and certificate of authentication kind of stuff.

This in itself answers most of the questions that are on the minds of musicians yet to enter the space. For us at TUNZ, it's all about giving back THE POWER and ONWERSHIP to the artist and to cut out the publisher and label. There's increasing numbers of distributors that offer mainstream services which are paying peanuts for our streams, such as $0.0003 per stream on Spotify etc. I saw some recent streaming figures stating that 99% of streaming royalties are being paid out to 1% of the artists. This actually sounds pretty accurate and frankly, rather depressing reading, but have no fear, because we're here to try and turn music back into an art form, rather than a throwaway product that we send to the charity shop when we have run out of space in the CD and Vinyl rack!

I also totally agree again with my esteemed NFT colleague @thelogicaldude when he states:

People are not legally supposed to redistribute music they purchase from Spotify or Apple Music. You can sue the pants off of them if you catch them doing it. The benefit of making something like a limited release is to bring back the art of it all. Back in the day, before the digital world really destroyed the art of music, you used to purchase CDs which in many cases had some really cool artwork and stuff like that with it. Same with vinyl.

This is why NFTs are changing the way we buy, sell and consume music, and the best is yet to come when people start to trade these assets on the multitude of blockchains out there in the metaverse.

PS. @thelogicaldude I think we can possibly use the HIVE and BSC as a collaborative partnership model in the future, so stay in touch and hit me up in the Discord server

Thanks again for starting this discussion, it's great to meet all of you new people in the space, I've been on HIVE since day 1 and Steemit before that.

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Thanks a lot for your input Darren, I know we talked about in Discord but wanted to get the discussion going in the public here so more can see the debate from all sides!

I agree that the creative licence and proof of ownership is a big part of it all. I guess for me it's a balance between the amount of users of NFTs vs the amount of users on Spotify and Apple music and how and where music is released.

The default for me is just to publish my music and get it on Spotify as everyone has heard of it but when I mention anything about NFTs to friends,a glaze comes over. Making the transition to this new world will take time but we'll keep trying for sure!

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That's not a problem and I'm happy to have some input on this fascinating new musical world. I remember when streaming came about, people were like, what the hell is an MP3, or what the hell is streaming?
I'm old enough to remember seeing the first CD on Tomorrow's World (look that up on YT) and my dad saying, what the hell is a compact disc?

I guess this is an historic event in our lives, much like the advent of the internet, mobile phones, the car and electricity.
People will jump more on board with this so just watch the space explode in the forthcoming Metaverse.

Cheers man,

DC

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I would love to work with you guys on a collaborative effort! I’ll reach out in Discord this week. Kinda taking the weekend for myself… saying this is I am here on Hive… lol…

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As far back as I can remember music and movies have been copied and distributed to the public by the public outside of the mainstream marketing channels. Music NFTs will be no different. I am not even sure if this can be policed effectively to protect people's properties.

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I agree, I do think it's impossible to police everything that goes on. Bittorrent, P2P file shares will always exist, I guess it just depends on how much that side of it affects you and if you're willing to accept it.

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