• No results found

lives upon. This also challenged the assumption that a streaming platform is two-sided as there

can exist up to six different types of users within the same platform, possibly more in other

industries. This therefore demonstrates that the term ‘platform’ is really only the tip of the

iceberg when it is powered by blockchain technology.

From an academic perspective, the different attributes from this new framework provide new insight into the composition of this new generation of streaming platforms. This research insinuates researchers to build conceptual frameworks of blockchain-enabled platforms of companies in other industries that also rely on this state-of-the-art technology. New propositions may emerge from the discussion of the results that include but are not limited to the true degree of decentralization, as even decentralized platforms may require some degree of regulation (Gol, Stein & Avital, 2019) or privacy issues that emerge due to the transparent nature of the blockchain technology (Fabiano, 2017). From a managerial perspective, especially for practitioners working in the music industry, this research offers an introduction into the direction the streaming industry is grading in the future. The transition towards decentralized streaming platforms may change the nature of problems that they face within their current platforms such as the traditional chicken and egg paradox of which side should be activated first (Trabucchi, 2020, Nguyen, 2017) to how potential DDOS attacks may be avoided at the early stages of platform development (Buganza et al, 2020). Due to the intrinsic attributes of blockchain technology new opportunities may arise such as ways to empower users within the ecosystem or decrease transaction costs from large volumes of micropayments in order to maintain platform participants satisfied.

Limitations and future research

This research has several limitations which open up avenues for further research. First of all the

sample of blockchain streaming platforms was small, this was merely due to the fact that not a

lot of blockchain streaming platforms are actually available to investigate. Ujo music has in the

meantime halted their current operations and is not yet sure if it will ever resume, questioning the

current relevance of the data collected and the generalizability of the results. The Ujo founder

Jesse Grushack now started working at Audius where he is in charge of Senior Strategy. Another limitation would be that more interviews were conducted at Audius and Ujo than there were at Musicoin and Bitsong, and the duration not being equal for each interview. This affected the cross-case analysis word frequency to be more representative towards companies that had interviews of a longer duration, namely. On the contrary, although interviews with Audius representatives were longer in duration, Audius is also the largest blockchain music streaming platform when measured by the size of their artist and listener base, which may justify their higher word count in the analysis of the raw data. Another limitation would be the use of the word frequency counter as it may not have captured the full richness of the data collected, where alternative words that may have been used in a similar context to describe the same phenomenon were not considered.

Future studies may continue to explore more blockchain-enabled platforms and their emerging business models within different industries that have not yet received the sufficient amount of attention, especially in creative fields such as photography or other entertainment sectors like movie and theater. This would also allow additional findings and frameworks to be constructed and compared across different industries increasing the reliability and validity of the findings in this paper. Content moderation is a key ingredient in assuring the quality of an internet platform.

In true decentralized platforms, any music that is published is automatically admitted to the

network and therefore does not automatically remove any duplicates, illegal remixes or other

illegal audio. Further research could therefore include how a system can be created where users

are able to moderate content using AI, while humans can democratically vote on the rules for

content. Finally, considering that the data collected for this thesis only included company

officials from the streaming platforms, future studies could instead aim to collect data from

actual artists, listeners, or other type of user that has a presence on blockchain music streaming

platforms to identify their motivation in making the transition to the blockchain alternative to

music streaming.

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Appendices

Appendix 1. Global Music Recording Industry Revenues: 2001-2019 ($ Billion)

Appendix 2. Music revenues adjusted for inflation 1977-2017

Appendix 3.1: Word frequency cloud of raw data, Variable: Governance

Appendix 3.2: Word frequency cloud of raw data, Variable: Revenue Sources

Appendix 3.3: Word frequency cloud of raw data, Variable: Currency

Appendix 3.4: Word frequency cloud of raw data, Variable: Agreements

Appendix 3.5: Word frequency cloud of raw data, Variable: Type of users

Appendix 3.6: Word frequency cloud of raw data, Variable: Relationships

Jack Spallone - Ujo Music

Wed, 6/23 8:29PM 3:13

SUMMARY KEYWORDS SUMMARY KEYWORDS

artists,music,channels,payment,license,pay,working,streaming,transaction,technology,

ethereum,blockchain,smart contract,content,music industry,spotify,costs,executing,digital,user

SPEAKERS SPEAKERS

Jack Spallone,Bing Voorham

Hi Good morning Jack happy to have you here today and thank you again for taking the time to sit down with me here today and answer my questions.

Yes of course your welcome, I’m happy to be part of your interview here today and share some of my experiences. I saw you were doing your research at the university of Amsterdam and I have been to Amsterdam once and thought it was really great so happy to work with your university all the way over here from NY.

Yes, haha thank you, im happy to work with you in Ny, I actually went there and studies music technology for a couple of months last year and absolutely loved it.

Ah no way where did you study at?

It was at Stevens institute of technology in Hoboken right across the river

Ah yes, I’ve heard of it, I believe we can actually see, wait let me check, yes I can actually see it all the way from the office here.

No way that’s awesome, well I definitely hope to be back soon I had a really. Good time there, but let’s get started with the questions I have, I don’t want to take up too much of your time of course.

Could you give yourself a quick introduction of your current position at Ujo music and what inspired you to start working for them?

Yes of course, well my name is Jack Spallone and I currently work for Ujo Music as a Project lead since 2018 so that includes planning, monitoring and executing current projects that we are currently working on.

Uhuh and what projects are you currently working on for example?

Well as a project lead, I tend to make sure that project teams are working together well and that they are on track to achieve their targets within the timeframes set. As an example, I now control a team of 5 full stack web developers in upgrading the Ujo platform after a couple of A/B tests we run to improve the user friendliness of the platform which we hope to have completed by the end of this month. Ans the truth is that I got here by coincidence, I was working at another company called Liveintent up until 2017 as a project manager also but was attracted to Ujo because I love the concept they were working on and play an instrument myself because I absolutely love music and could definitely identify the problem they, or actually ‘we’ are solving right now.

That’s great to hear Jack, I fully agree with that the problem you guys are solving is an important one, I was just wondering when Ujo was founded and how many listeners you guys have now?

Well how many listeners we currently have I can only give you an estimate, I guess around 20,000, but Ujo was founded in 2015 I know that for sure haha and they have been growing slowly but steadily over the last decade or so, we now have a team of around 20 people so that is quite an organization already.

Yes, it is indeed, well thank you for that introduction that was great, I would now like to move to a new topic and that concerns the underlying technology, that Ujo uses since that is essentially what makes Ujo different than the existing music platforms, could you please explain why the music industry is a troubled industry and how Ujo is trying to solve this?

Yes of course well to begin with roughly forty percent of our music consumption is currently

streamed from platforms like Spotify or Soundcloud. However, aside from artists on the “Top 40”

playlists and those that are well-established in fame, smaller artists struggle to receive substantial compensation from these streaming services. Each time we stream a song, the artist will earn roughly four-tenths of a penny. Those lesser known artists we want to support aren’t getting the credit they deserve. Heck, we’re basically streaming them into poverty.

Woah four-tenth of a penny is indeed very little, especially since music streaming in the main way of listening to music today. I can imagine that artists and especially the small ones have a hard time earning a living out of music. How does Ujo hope to change this?

Musicians, especially new artists, already have it tough making it in the industry. But, we have the technology to change that. Blockchain technology is here and ready to innovate the music industry. Imagine the application like this: A bunch of solo musicians are playing out of self-interest, trying to make it in the industry, but when then come together as a band, they produce music that benefits everyone. The music produced being a trusted, immutable record not

managed by a central authority (i.e cutting out intermediaries like label and publishers). Doing so gives artists the compensation they deserve rather than losing money to these intermediaries. So by using blockchain technology we can help musicians, for example, giving them up to eighty percent more in compensation per stream. However, the fans, who love and support these artists, also benefit immensely. Not only will we feel great about our favorite rising artists getting paid fairly for their creations, but artists can then focus on creating more groovy jams instead of being burdened by labels and publishers. Just to name a few examples.

That sounds great Jack, I also came across an interview with Jesse Grushack (CEO) where he touches upon not needing PRO’s anymore because of the decentralized aspect of blockchain technology, could you explain how the current industry works and…

Yes well there are three main avenues for music distribution, mainstream channels (such as radio, TV, bars), digital service providers (such as Spotify and Apple Music) and direct channels (such as soundcloud). With the mainstream channels, you run into two issues, accessibility and payments.

In order to get access, you typically need to go through one of the big three record labels, Sony, Warner and Universal. Then, if you want to get paid, you have to join one of three Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) that are regulated and controlled. It can take up to two years for the artist to see their payments, and they have absolutely no insight into what is happening in the meantime. With digital service providers, licensing deals are negotiated directly with the labels and publishers without the need of PROs, since these are not public performances. While this may

create efficiencies and cost savings for those negotiating, it is only the Beyonce’s of the world that benefit. Finally, there are direct channels, and while this does a good job of removing

intermediaries, you lose a lot of insight into who is licensing your music and how they are using it.

UjoMusic addresses these issues with a beta version. The system combines the transparent attribute of a blockchain with smart contract technology. Users will be able to buy different types of licenses, such as the right to play in a commercial, in a bar, in a youtube video, or just when sitting at home with friends, by sending ether to a wallet that can be easily branded as the artist’s own. A smart contract is then executed which will determine the type of license purchased based on the amount paid, deliver the music to the user, immutably maintain a record of the contract bought on the blockchain, and then pay directly to all the stakeholders involved in the creation of the music. While removing intermediaries in both the distribution and payment processes, this solution adds another layer of transparency that helps artists ensure that when they see their music being used in various ways, that it has been properly licensed, while providing an easy way for a licensee to prove their ownership of the correct license.

Do you have different licenses available, maybe similar to Spotify offering like a family premium account, or Netflix family account?

We do, we do, we have different license that people can buy but they work a little different than just having a family package where the product essentially stays the same. Instead, we use 3 different types of licenses, namely a streaming license which allows anyone to listen to a track for 1 cent, then we have a download license which costs 60 cents and you can download the song and listen to it as many times as you want, so you really ‘own’ the track. Then there is a third license which we call a stem license, this one allows you to extract the song into its pieces and use these pieces for in your own music. So let’s say there is this drum beat which you really like and want to use in your own track, then you would pay the $45 in order to be able to use this.

Okay that is quite interesting, so instead of having monthly subscriptions, instead you use more of a pay-per-stream model.

Since we’re becoming more accustomed to “digital” business models, we want to consume “pay-per” use content. Younger consumers, especially, would rather pay a couple of cents for a single song than being charged a flat monthly subscription fee in order to avoid ads. Yet, an increase in transactions is costly when using current billing systems. These costs make it difficult for

companies to competitively sell low-price items or bundles with profit gained. Micro-payments using blockchain technology can help make it possible for companies to sell individual pieces of