Last year, the music industry took its first steps into the NFT universe, but this was just the timid beginning of a movement that could revolutionize music creation forever. We explain how below.

On March 8 of last year, the band Kings of Leon released their latest album, When you see yourself.

So far everything normal. However, this release had a surprise for lovers of digital assets: 6,500 NFTs on the new album would also go up for auction.

Each of these NFTs includes a digital moving cover and grants access to download the new Kings of Leon album.

On the other hand, the world-famous band The White Stripes auctioned off 512 NFTs on April 21 with a remix of their best-known song, ‘Seven Nation Army’. This remix is ​​not available on Spotify or any streaming platform: to listen to it you have to access the NFT, generating exclusivity among its owners.

But these were not the only initiatives that linked music with NFTs.

On November 16, Ape-In Productions, a project led by American rapper Timbaland, went one step further and released their first single as an NFT.

The most interesting thing about this project is that there are 3,000 NFTs that represent a participation in the rights to the song and grant each owner of this NFT the intellectual property of the song and the right to receive the royalties that the song generates.

The vision of this project is that in the future artists will release their songs as NFTs, and that people will be able, in addition to listening to their favorite songs, to be owners and have the right to earn money from the royalties generated by these songs.

Until this release, the link between NFTs and music had been very superficial. NFTs were considered as a complement in the release of new musical material, as was the case with the Kings of Leon or the White Stripes.

The great innovation of projects like Ape-In Productions is that by making the holders of the NFT also the holders of the intellectual property of the song, it massively increases the engagement of the public with the music and makes them participate. of the success of their songs, giving rise to a new heightened experience for fans.

This will mean a revolution for the music industry, since the public will go from being a mere passive listener of the songs, to a co-owner of them. An incentive for these new owners to act as promoters for their favorite artists.

Can you imagine if in 1960 this technology would have been available? Imagine having listened to the Beatles or the Rolling Stones at the beginning of the decade, when they were playing in small bars in England, and that you had the possibility of buying shares in their music back then.

The wealth you could have generated would be immense.

Earning a fortune by discovering budding artists and participating in their creations by owning NFTs may be closer than we think…

More opportunities for artists
The incorporation of the NFTs to the world of music will not only benefit the fans of the groups. It will also allow thousands of artists around the world to launch their musical projects directly thanks to the Blockchain.

Currently, artists depend on record labels to be able to release their albums. This dependence on record companies also has a negative impact on artists from an economic point of view, since they barely take half of the income generated by their production.

With NFT auctions, the vast majority of revenue goes to artists. The NFT trading platforms keep a commission (which is barely 2.5% in the case of OpenSea), the largest NFT market in the world.

A figure very far from the 50% that they used to share with the record company.

But not only that, in addition, every time their NFTs are exchanged, artists can receive royalties for these sales, since the transactions are reflected in the Blockchain and can be recorded in a simple and automatic way.