27 – Music Industry Creatives take power back through NFTs | NFT Deep dive 3/3

Tracey: [00:01:35] Welcome to the crypto curious podcast designed to help you navigate the dynamic world of crypto currency. This podcast is here for anyone who is interested in crypto at all. Maybe you've already dip your toe in the water, or maybe you don't know anything about this since the very beginning. Crypto curious is the place to get started as we cover off all the basics that you need to know, but we recommend heading back to the early episodes to get your footing. However, if you think you're ready to dive in headfirst, then let's do it. I'm joined by my powers and colleagues from the bamboo app Blake and Craig. Hey boys, how are you going? 

Blake: [00:02:09] Very well. Trace, how are you? 

Tracey: [00:02:10] Very well. Hi, Craig. 

Craig: [00:02:12] Good Trace, how's things? 

Tracey: [00:02:14] Very well. This week we are finishing off our NFT series and we'll talk today about the music world and how this interacts with the NFT space. We'll also talk about a few bits of news in this space as well, so stick around to the very end. Craig, let's talk about this music industry. How does it actually work in regards to NFTs? 

Craig: [00:02:35] So NFTs are aiming to disrupt many industries. We spoke last in our last episode about gaming, and some people actually think it'll disrupt music more than it'll disrupt gaming. But music could be set to benefit the most and have a lot of different ways. So if you look at it now, we've got songs, albums, music, lyrics, sound bites can all now be NFTs, but also we have concert tickets. Artwork can also be made as NFTs, and we spoke about this back in an NFT episode, episode 11. So if you haven't heard that, go back and give it a listen where Kings of Leon became the first band to release an album as an NFT. And it's sort of a cool space where you can combine digital art with a little soundboard as well, and some of the OpenSea you press play. You can actually hear the sound of the token, which is pretty cool. So when you take a deep dive into what an artist can do for the music scene, that seems like they could really define the future of music royalties and fan engagement. 

Blake: [00:03:31] Yeah, that's right. This really enables equitable compensation for artists for decades. Musicians have not been fairly compensated for their music. This is really obvious in the music industry, with the typical revenue split being 50-50 between the entertainer and the agents, lawyers and distributors. It's even worse for the musicians who distribute their content via streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. For example, Spotify's top point eight percent of artists earn something like $50000 per year in streaming revenue, which is pretty ridiculous, and these sorts of industries are really right for destruction to have peer-to-peer distribution. So NFTs really have the potential to ensure musicians are more fairly compensated for their work. That's why it's getting a lot of attention and going to create a new industry in itself. 

Tracey: [00:04:27] Yeah, I think further on from what Blake is saying. The important aspects of ownership with regards to NFT musicians and other creators don't need to then relinquish their ownership for their content on platforms right from the beginning, so they can choose to relinquish the rights for songs or albums when they mean NFTs. But they can also bike in the ownership Bryce of the smart contracts of NFT. So like you said, that becomes much more fair and equitable because they then can continue on to get revenue into the future. 

Craig: [00:04:57] How would that work? From Dollars perspective, if they NFT an album, wouldn't it mean someone just owns that album? 

Blake: [00:05:03] It really depends on the conditions of the smart contract year when you're issuing an NFT. There's all sorts of parameters that you can bundle up within the NFT, and some will have, you know, full ownership rights. Some would have share rights and would have distribution rights. Some would have royalty rights. It really depends on, you know, what the artist wants to do in the initial instance. 

Craig: [00:05:24] I think the most exciting thing here is an entertainer that can resell the NFT, and the one that I'm most excited about is concert tickets. Because like back in the day, if you couldn't get access to your favourite bands concerts, you'd have to pay up the wazoo to get access. But now the artist can actually benefit from that. As Blake mentioned before, these artists are getting stitched up by working with Spotify and Apple Music, and I guess the most exciting thing for them is, you know, when an NFT honouree sells their NFT, whether it's an album, whether it's a sound bite, a beat or whatever, it may be, whatever the artist decides to do when they resell it, these artists now getting a royalty, which can be whatever they decide. I think most of the ones on OpenSea is around seven percent, which is, you know, a 10x from the 0.8 percent that you've spoken about, Blake. And, you know, they're probably incentive. Others as well to give even more access to these and have so it's a really exciting time for musicians, and I think we'll see NATO support, especially new and upcoming artists that don't have to give away their IP straight off the bat to get, you know, get noticed. 

Tracey: [00:06:30] Yeah, I think an on that point, that's kind of why I really like this space because of the fan interaction component with these new new artists coming up. Because with NFTs, your biggest fans can actually show support by investing in your career. So if you are an up and coming artist, you can give your fans an opportunity to tell you how much they believe in your success, for example, so they can go out and buy an NFT with the hope that you kind of blow up and become, you know, really successful in the future. 

Blake: [00:06:59] Exactly right. The other thing is, if someone buys an NFT from a smaller artist, there will be more incentivised to promote the artist to assist with their growth because they've invested into the NFT. And then if you know, you know, there's the potential for the artist to gain more exposure in the marketplace, there's the opportunity of making a profit from that investment from the resale, which would benefit, you know, obviously the initial investor, but also the artist in several different ways. And as well as this, the artist can use NFT sales to help fund their next projects. You know, there's a lot of capital expenditure in producing and taking time out, from touring or from from a day job to your produce an album, for example. And if they could raise a certain amount of funds, pre production and launch, then you know, it creates a different business model for these people to take advantage of. 

Tracey: [00:08:01] Yeah, I think this is really cool. I think this is a great way for people on the grassroots to get that. You said that Kickstarter campaign going so they can get, you know, a bunch of their friends or it would take is really, you know, couple of thousand, you know, people who are supporters of a group to get some funding going and you can produce an album. And then with that, you bake something into an NFT where they get free concert tickets for, you know, the first year. And then, you know, you've kind of you've got your start and it's pretty cool. 

Blake: [00:08:28] Speaking of this, it might be a good time to point out that, you know, there's a lot of secondary benefits that come along with some of these NFTs, but many of these groups have been seen to kind of over promise and under deliver on these secondary benefits. So when you are looking at these things, making sure that you know you really do your due diligence on the team to ensure that they will follow through and have the capital and they're treating it like a business, not like 

Tracey: [00:08:57] it's going to run off with the money. 

Blake: [00:08:58] I'm not so much that, but you have a low level commitment and it really just more focussed on the buzz of it as opposed to creating real value. 

Tracey: [00:09:07] I think maybe let's leave it there and go to a break. And then when we come back, let's look at a few bands or entities that have actually done something in this space. So we're back in we're talking about the NFT space and in particular, musicians. So we've just talked about why this is such an important space for musicians. So let's have a look at now who that we know of that started to jump into this space and what they're doing. So the first to jump on last year, who we've spoken about it a number of times were the Kings of Leon, and they released an NFT last year of their new album. What came along with the token was front row seats and VIP access to their concert, which is, I think, pretty cool. What else came out last year, Craig? 

Craig: [00:11:27] That's a really good example of NFT is just cannibalising the old school VIP ticket that, you know, if you band comes, you pay 600 bucks to get the VIP experience that's been digitised by Kings of Leon in a really cool way. But this one's another one that was pretty early on, actually. So March 20 21 Nifty Gateway helped Grimes make $6 million in about 20 minutes. She sold 10 exclusive digital artwork, some of which were included with original songs. It's called the War Nymph Collection, and it was huge on social media, and this is a really good example of collectables getting digitised as well. Like my, my old man's got a Beatles artwork in the back room. Now this is another this is a whole nother thing of collectables. So like Grimes, diehard fans would be all over this so they can either resell it or they can own something that's, you know, from their favourite artist. 

Tracey: [00:12:19] This was hugely popular at the time. I mean, you know, I wasn't a I knew Grimes was, you know, one of his songs. I knew that she was also Elon's girlfriend. But this was huge at the time because not just because of the music, but because of the artwork that went with it also. 

Craig: [00:12:33] So is it ten one two one pieces? 

Tracey: [00:12:36] Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. 

Blake: [00:12:37] Electronic DJ producer Steve Aoki, one of your favourites, Craig dropped his inaugural NFT collection called Dreamcatcher on the Gemini marketplace itself a four point twenty five million, and it had 11 unique works 

Tracey: [00:12:52] that was around about the same time as guys. But that's interesting because they both released on Gemini, which was a nifty gateway. What do you 

Blake: [00:13:00] reckon Gemini paid for for to get them on there?

Tracey: [00:13:03] I don't know. I joke and say generally saying that Gemini would have paid to get those guys on to do their releases on Nifty. 

Blake: [00:13:09] I'm going to say I'm going to predict that there's going to be competition between all NFT marketplaces to bring on, you know, the biggest names to promote their platforms and bring users across. And I reckon they'll be putting up cash for that, for sure. 

Tracey: [00:13:22] Back around about this time last year, when this was all kicking off, there were a few platforms popping up to try and be kind of the platform to sell music, NFTs. But you know, there's there's none that's really risen to the top as the NFT music platform Nifty Gateway right now is probably the number one. But you can go and buy it on OpenSea, and you can go and buy it on other platforms. So there was a couple that tried to be kind of the number one, but at the moment, Nifty is probably stayed up there, and that's because of what happened around about March, April, May, June, that those three months last year where you had the likes of Grime and Nike and a few others like, you know, you know, there's a few others crying around about the same time wasn't there. 

Craig: [00:14:03] Yeah, it seems like Gemini really made moves last year. They got the weekend he sold his for two mil. Eminem sold his for just under two mil. So it seems like Gemini winning the race. But I mean, remains to be seen where it goes. 

Blake: [00:14:15] Yeah, it's really interesting, you know, and it's a massive weight race to win. You know, if they're investing in that, then make good on them. Well, look, 

Tracey: [00:14:23] while we talking about that was a bit of news that came out last week. So there's another group that's trying to do exactly this and build this NFT music marketplace, and it's called serenades. So this is the one that was backed by Aussie Hugh Jackman. So this this is called Serenade. The news came out last week. They raised six million and they're a technology company and they're basically doing the same thing. They're trying to launch his platform, allowing all musicians to, you know, retain the copyright of their work, a platform allowing artists to upload their music and mintah as an NFT. And you know, they're trying to be the one platform to rule them all. Why do you always go to a Lord of the Rings? Quite, but so so Sarah Knight are trying to be that platform, and this was like I said, so it's an Aussie platform, and they raised $6 and it was it was kind of released last week with the backing of of good old Hugh Jackman. 

Craig: [00:15:13] Another one on the bleeding edge is disclosure, so they sold that famous image of that. The face, you know, sort of illustrated face that they have

Tracey: [00:15:22] the the 2012. 

Craig: [00:15:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a couple of fans got together, they paid 140 K, which is probably more now because they probably paid in theory and the Syrians got out. But that transaction included lifetime concert tickets. And since then, they've actually become mates with disclosure. So like, imagine being mates with, you know, you've just gone all in on the NFT with your mates and now you're mates with the band 

Tracey: [00:15:47] and not just mates of the van, but when they got together to buy this, they're really in it. They're really into their. And if so, they got together as a group and they made their own company called digital brokers or something is not that, but so they made this company, they bought the Neft. And because they've got a company name, they've set up a company office disclosure have actually come and played at a company event for them. Like, that's how I can imagine going. Yes. You know, come and play at the gigs. They've made friends of them that that's that's, you know, that's a pretty cool story. 

Craig: [00:16:17] But it wouldn't be enough to be poly without talking about the board apes in the Universal Music. And now it's the formation of kingship, which is a Bordeaux's virtual band. I'm getting guerrilla vibes from this, and producer Timberland is now going to create a music and animation around the board ape avatars. So OK, who knows what they're going to do with that next? 

Tracey: [00:16:37] Who knows, but I can tell you it will be probably one hundredth as good as the gorillas. I can tell you that right now. But going back to real music, the Wu-Tang Clan, the Wu-Tang Clan work six years on Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which was released as a single copy of an LP back in 2015. So three years later, the government sees the album from its original owner is basically has a, you know, hasn't been heard by many people. And it's made it one of the rarest albums ever released. It's always been spoken about, and it's, you know, it's kind of a bit 

Blake: [00:17:07] of why was it seised? 

Tracey: [00:17:08] I think it's just goes down as part of their whole. What happened with the with the Wu-Tang? You know, they they kind of had a bit of drug controversy. You know, a few things went down, few people went to prison and few bad things happened. So this album is very rare. It hasn't been heard by many, makes it one of the rarest albums ever released, and now it's owned by a collective, a bunch of DeFi pioneers. I'm not 100 per cent sure on their name. I think it's pleaser DAO. But this group bought this album for four million dollars. 

Blake: [00:17:40] Yeah, and there's obviously a bit of buzz at the moment, with Coachella unveiled a bunch of digital collectables in a move to embrace NFTs, and their release was in partnership with cryptocurrency exchange FCX, who has spoken about before. And as part of, you know, buying one of these NFTs, you received a lifetime festival pass, which is pretty cool, I guess. Guess how much it was, Craig? 

Craig: [00:18:05] How much tell me 

Blake: [00:18:06] it was one hundred twenty one thousand dollars for the key to Coachella NFT, which offers two lifetime guest passes. So pretty pricey. If you ask me, 

Craig: [00:18:18] that doesn't even make sense. It's probably cheaper just to buy a lifetime, just buy a ticket every year. 

Blake: [00:18:23] But then you wouldn't get the NFT, Craig.

Tracey: [00:18:25] Yeah, and all the things that go with it. I'm sure there's like, I'm sure there's a hoodie. There's always a hoodie. 

Craig: [00:18:30] There's always a hoodie. Yes.

Tracey: [00:18:32] So there we have it. And that's just naming a few of the activities and partnerships that have taken place in the NFT music world over the past eight months. And I think the collaborations are going to be thick and fast and coming our way definitely are. You know, it is a creative space for these musicians, and it's also looking like a very lucrative space also. So it's definitely something that we will watch and and keep an eye on. But that's it for today. We love hearing from you, our listeners, and finding out what you want to know more about. So please keep us in the loop and send us an email at podcast. I get Bambu Io and follow us on social media and make sure you hit the follow button whenever you are listening to us. Like right now, that's so you don't want to miss an episode and get notified every time we release a new one. We love you also to share this podcast with your friends and family. We know there are a lot of crypto curious people out there, so send them our way. Why don't you? Also, don't forget we have the code curious out there for anyone who would like ten dollars worth of free Ethereum when they download the bamboo app. And don't forget to write and review us in your podcast app wherever you're listening to us right now. So thanks for listening and we'll see you next episode five an hour. See you guys.

Blake: [00:19:46] Thanks for listening