Category Blockchain
Are NFTs DRM by Another Name?
Twenty years ago, when the first generation of DRM technologies hit the market, one of the benefits they touted was that with DRM-packaged files, consumers could be sure that they were getting the genuine content from the source. For example, if the content was a scientific journal article with research results, they could be confident […]
Journal Article on Blockchain and Music
I have an article in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA, “The Future of Blockchain Technology and the Music Industry.” The article explains the basics of blockchain technology, then evaluates proposed applications of the technology to music mainly by addressing the question of whether they solve known, current […]
Blockchain Applications for Music Enter the Bowling Alley
An interesting experiment in the use of blockchain technology was announced last week at the MIDEM music conference in Cannes, France. It involves the Israeli music blockchain startup Revelator, working with the music recognition service BMAT and the Finnish music collecting society Teosto. The application is payment of performance royalties to composers for radio airplay, […]
Article on Blockchain and Music
I have an article on blockchain technology in the music industry that has just been published in the American Bar Association’s Entertainment and Sports Lawyer journal Winter 2019 issue. A few errors in case citations crept in during production, so I thought I’d put the corrections on record here: p. 18: the citation should be […]
One Reason Why Blockchain Is Here to Stay: The Tapscott Effect
(This is somewhat off topic, but it has no “news peg,” so it’s not appropriate for my column in Forbes, and after trying some experiments on Medium, I’ve decided not to support their advertisers anymore. So I’m writing it here.) Several days ago, at the Digital Book World conference in Nashville, I was on a […]
Blockchain Comes to E-Books, DRM Included
Blockchain technology has reached e-books. The CEOs of two startups with e-book distribution platforms based on blockchains, Scenarex and Publica, are going to appear with me on a panel at the Digital Book World conference in Nashville in early October. The similarities of their technologies indicate a direction for blockchains in the e-book world. The […]
Dot Blockchain Media Makes Blockchain Plus Watermarking a Reality
An announcement from the startup Dot Blockchain Media a couple of weeks ago heralds an exciting new development in the potential for blockchain technology in the media industry. Dot Blockchain has partnerships with the New York-based recording artist STOLAR and the indie distributor FUGA. These partnerships enabled Dot Blockchain to take STOLAR’s track “Forget And Feel” and […]
Spotify Acquires Blockchain Startup Mediachain
Spotify announced yesterday that it has acquired the blockchain startup Mediachain Labs for an undisclosed sum. For those watching the music/blockchain space, this is big news indeed. Here’s a passage from the whitepaper I recently published on blockchain technology for music: DSPs [digital music service providers] have become the “big boys” of the music industry, […]
New White Paper: Watermarking Technology and Blockchains in the Music Industry
A new white paper that that explores the combination of blockchain technology and digital audio watermarks for improving rights management and royalty processing in the music industry.
A Bounty Hunting Service for E-Book Piracy
We’ve been talking a lot here about blockchain applications for transaction processing in the music industry; in fact we had a panel on it at last week’s conference in NYC. Yet the latest application of blockchain technology to the media industry, from Custos Media Technologies, has nothing to do with music or royalty transaction processing. […]
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