Blockchain For Beyonce

Artists like Imogen Heap are changing the way they make music — and visual albums — by releasing their music and videos as NFTs instead of on traditional sales channels, such as iTunes. How can Beyonce — the Queen of self-publishing — benefit from NFTs? And how is NFT ownership different than the ownership of self-publishing through her own production company and owning her masters? We explore.

HERE’S HOW BEYONCE CREATES AND DISTRIBUTES HER MUSIC NOW

Beyonce has held her own management and publishing company since 2010 when she went solo from Destiny’s Child — Parkwood Entertainment. Since then, she has self-published her music — from her self-titled 5th album to Lemonade to The Lion King: The Gift.

Showcasing some major business savvy (obvi), Beyonce is said to hold all masters to her self-published material — which is rare for an artist. When you own your own masters, you have full control over the distribution and marketing of your songs. That means you can decide which platforms sell and stream your music, the album’s launch and marketing, and the rights to license the music for tv, film, and more. Beyonce often advocates for artists to own their own masters and you might remember, Taylor Swift is currently re-recording several of her albums after not being able to secure rights to purchase her masters from Scoot Braun — who sold them to Shamrock Holdings in 2020 for $300 million.

Beyonce has also previously partnered with streaming platform Tidal in exchange for a gifted 3% in equity in Tidal’s effort to provide exclusive content that would help drive value for the subscription price. But, while Tidal started with the idea of “honoring artists by being artist-owned and led”, and is competitive of what they pay artists per stream, it’s still far from lucrative for the artists — particularly small and emerging musicians. For reference, Tidal pays up to $0.013 per stream to artists while Spotify pays artists $0.004 per stream on average.

MUSIC NFTs FOR CREATORS

Let’s do a quick recap on what NFTs are and what they do. An NFT can be any digital file — art, music, videos, collectibles and more can be NFTs.

NFT stands for non-fungible tokens. An NFT is not a cryptocurrency, but — like cryptocurrencies — uses blockchain technology to assign ownership to digital and physical items. NFTs carry unique identifiers, allowing the tokenizing of real-world items through smart contracts. This facilitates the ability to buy, sell, and trade NFTs. Smart contracts built into an NFT’s code also allows for life — long royalties to be executed.

So, what does digital ownership mean for creators, artists, and musicians?

Royalty rates
Ownership and control over creative content
Authentic connections with your community
Profits in place of or in addition to streaming services

British composer and recording artist, Imogen Heap, was an early investor of Ethereum (ETH) and one of the first musical artists to advocate for creators to utilize blockchain tech and NFTs. For musical artists, NFTs provide full ownership and control over their work, in addition to the opportunity to set ongoing royalty rates. She has so far released six audio visual NFTs that offer a set of live recordings. Throughout sales, Imogen Heap as donated to causes that work to offset any carbon footprint that could occur during the transaction.

While Beyonce can definitely benefit from the power of digital ownership and utilizing NFTs to distribute her music and create + grow hercommunity — so can emerging artists, who are often unable to hit the necessary streams to make a livable wage.

THE POWER OF DIGITAL OWNERSHIP — When you own something, you treat it differently

What does digital ownership look like?

Digital ownership means we can access, use, and share our funds, data, digital files, collectibles, and more. With digital ownership, we can easily prove ownership, grant ownership, control scarcity + supply, and be paid + rewarded for the content and creative materials we put into the world.

What doesn’t digital ownership look like? Let’s use Amazon as an example.

From a consumer perspective: Let’s say we purchase an album from Amazon Music. We pay $20.00 for the album, download it, and have 24/7 access to it on our phone. However, we don’t own that file — we can transfer it, sell it, or otherwise engage with it as an ‘owner’.

From a consumer perspective: If you purchased the album as an NFT, and put in your wallet you would also have full access to your file — similar to a download from a centralized platform. But now, you can re-sell the file and trade the file — because you can prove ownership of the digital item (music file). You can also be granted access to a private community and perks associated with being a holder of that specific NFT.

HOW NFTs WOULD BENEFIT QUEEN BEY (AND ALL MUSICIANS)

With streaming services pay an average of $0.004 per play, albums distributed as NFTs can bring in as much as fans are willing to pay per album. Musicians can replace their traditional distribution plans with NFTs or add NFTs to their distribution plan as a limited-edition album, an album with bonus content and/or features (like video), and offer access to a closed community.

NFTs can benefit Beyonce through:

Direct sales
Lifelong royalties the she can set for secondary markets
Airdrop reward for the Beyhive to maintain loyalty and show appreciation
Closed community to build your brand, announce news, and engage with your community of fans
Ability to create scarcity and supply by setting the number of NFTs that can be minted

NEED MORE?

Blockchain tech has the potential to disrupt every industry and we can’t wait to see more artists and musicians benefiting from the power of digital ownership.

Find more NFT articles below from your favorite Crypto Witches and tell is in the comments which celeb you want to see next in our Blockchain For series.