Spotify Turns to Blockchain Technology to Pay More Royalties to Artists - MacRumors
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Spotify Turns to Blockchain Technology to Pay More Royalties to Artists

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spotifysmalllogoSpotify has announced its acquisition of blockchain technology company Mediachain Labs to help it reward online content owners with royalty payments.

The news, first reported by VentureBeat on Wednesday, was relayed via a Spotify press release which has since been removed from its website, explaining that the purchase of the New York-based startup was aimed at facilitating Spotify's "journey toward a more fair, transparent and rewarding music industry for creators and rights owners".

Mediachain is responsible for the creation of an open source peer-to-peer database and protocol for registering, identifying, and tracking creative works online. The blockchain component aims to help creators and rights holders prove they are the owner of a piece of work and receive due payment.

Spotify has faced legal trouble in the past over its failure to pay artists and publishers, which is said to be down to difficulties it has had in working out who to pay, a problem which relates especially to smaller artists and labels.

Last month, Spotify reached a $30 million settlement with a publishing group over unpaid royalties and agreed to put in place a system that guaranteed a "reasonable effort" would be made to match all music streams with creators and rights owners.

Spotify recently passed 50 million paid subscribers. The Mediachain acquisition deal – the terms of which were not disclosed – appears to be part of the company's plan to gain wider support from the creative community as it gears up to become an initial public offering on the stock market sometime next year.

Tag: Spotify

Top Rated Comments

A MacBook lover Avatar
A MacBook lover
118 months ago
Yeah, it doesn't add up, so something is probably missing from the story. Usually these cryptocurrency systems are designed to let many individuals contribute arbitrarily small amounts of money to things easily, securely, for cheap/free, and sometimes anonymously. It's a neat concept that I'd like to see implemented if they can get rid of the anonymity, but I've only ever heard of criminals and ultra-geeks using it, and I don't see why Spotify needs it.
Blockchain is ground breaking technology that forms a distributed ledger, every company will be using some form of it in the future. Read up.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kabeyun Avatar
Kabeyun
118 months ago
I didn't realize that you need special startup technology to figure out who wrote the song your service is streaming. Other streaming services must really be struggling to figure out who wrote what. I just assumed Spotify just wasn't paying fairly. Silly me.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Canubis Avatar
Canubis
118 months ago
I didn't realize that you need special startup technology to figure out who wrote the song your service is streaming. Other streaming services must really be struggling to figure out who wrote what. I just assumed Spotify just wasn't paying fairly. Silly me.
One needs to see the much bigger picture here. Blockchain technology has the potential to cut away big parts of the licensing jobs the labels, distribution companies, royalty collection agencies etc. are doing now and will eventually bring artists a bigger piece of the revenue cake since there will be less other parties involved in between the artists and their audiences.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ArtOfWarfare Avatar
ArtOfWarfare
118 months ago
It's a neat concept that I'd like to see implemented if they can get rid of the anonymity, but I've only ever heard of criminals and ultra-geeks using it, and I don't see why Spotify needs it.
You've got it backwards. Blockchain isn't anonymous at all. If you want to do money laundering, you do it with cash or gift cards. Those are completely anonymous and untrackable. Blockchain is easy to track - every unit is clearly labeled with every person who has ever had possession of it.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
69Mustang Avatar
69Mustang
118 months ago
Huh? Increased transparency and speed of tranfer of what? I hope it isn't payroll. The only person who should be getting licencing fees from art are the content creators. I'd even be so bold as to say most members of a band don't deserve royalties either. There is no other industry that does this crap. The company that made Vanna White' s fillings doesn't get paid every time she smiles.
This is a horribly bad take, and the Vanna analogy is even worse since White doesn't get paid every time she smiles. It completely ignores the realities of the industry. The record companies take the majority of the royalties. In general, for artist to get more they need better deals with the labels first. That's not on Spotify. Even if Spotify pays more royalties, that's no guarantee the artists are going to get more since the labels don't have to pass that windfall down to the artists. Trickle down economics never worked anywhere else, no reason to think it would work here.

Band members don't deserve royalties? Uh, I got nothin'.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
S
sinsin07
118 months ago
How fair Spotify could pay those content owners? Same level as Apple Music? Or just bare minimum?
Personally don't really like Spotify but if it is gone, I will have no free streaming service to use.
Search and you shall find:
"For instance, the latest RIAA report showed ('https://9to5mac.com/2017/03/30/music-streaming-artist-payout-rates/') that while Apple pays between $12 and $15 per 1,000 streams, Spotify pays around $7. YouTube, however, remains the worst at around $1 per 1,000 streams."
Spotify aiming to solve its unpaid royalties problem with acquisition of Mediachain startup (https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/26/spotify-database-rights-holders-acquisition/)
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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