Wednesday, August 1, 2018

eMusic seeks to finance blockchain-powered music distribution plans | UNLIMITED | CMU

eMusic

You all remember eMusic right? No? OK. You all remember downloading right? No? OK. Well, there was this brief moment in history when people used to download digital files that contained recordings of their favourite tunes. And one of the first companies to facilitate this ‘downloading’ was called eMusic. And, remarkably, it still exists. Yes, it’s been through various iterations and owners over the years, but eMusic is officially still a thing.

But why am I bringing up this old-fashioned download platform from the olden days when olden day people did olden day things to listen to olden day music? Well, because since earlier this year the current owners of eMusic have been banging on about the bloody blockchain. Yeah, the blockchain. So that makes eMusic the future of music, right?

“As the first major music service to fully embrace blockchain, eMusic will develop a sustainable music ecosystem for artists, service providers and the fans that support them” the company says, being only slightly reckless with the term ‘major music service’. It then adds: “eMusic’s mission is to correct an imbalanced music industry by building a fair, simple and transparent music distribution platform for artists and service providers”.

Although all this blockchain waffle has been emanating out of eMusic HQ for a while now, it’s newsworthy this week because the company has announced “a $70 million token sale to build a decentralised music distribution and royalty management system. eMusic is planning a public pre-sale for its eMusic utility token beginning in September 2018 with a token generation event immediately following”.

Now, I’d explain to you what that all meant, but I wouldn’t want to patronise you. But basically, eMusic’s current owners are hoping to set up a new kind of music distribution and rights management platform that employs smart contracts and the blockchain to make the whole process more transparent and efficient. Yes, it’s another one of them. And now you have an opportunity to throw some cash into the project. What a time to be alive!

Says eMusic boss Tamir Koch: “Today’s supply chain for music is broken. While streaming has made it possible for anyone to listen to virtually any song ever recorded at any time, its underlying economics are financially crippling to the most vital piece of the music ecosystem – artists. And on the other side of the supply chain, service providers are losing billions and struggling to stay alive. Most fans don’t realise that this is an unsustainable future with fewer artists and fewer providers”.

His solution? “Today’s supply chain is full of blockers, middlemen and inefficiencies that create barriers for artists’ music to get from the studio to fans’ headphones. eMusic is going to fix this problem using an all-new blockchain platform that provides a more streamlined, transparent and autonomous structure benefiting all parties”. Lovely stuff.

Assuming I’ve now totally sold you on all this, you’ll find more info at token.emusic.com.

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