Streaming music services’ share of total music revenues is bigger than ever.
According to a report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, global music sales grew for the fifth consecutive year to $20.2 billion in 2019 with streaming accounting for more than half of all label revenue for the first time.
Highlighting record companies’ ever-increasing dependence on streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon and Apple Music, the music industry has transformed to a digital-first business and with that comes challenges.
Goldman Sachs estimates that world-wide streaming music royalties will exceed US $34 billion by 2030. Currently, however, up to 15 percent of streaming play count reports are incorrect, leading to billions of dollars in unpaid royalties.
Vancouver’s Beatdapp wants to change that.
Beatdapp tracks every music stream in real-time to create an immutable record secured by its proprietary blockchain, helping labels and artists identify missing music royalties.
To further their mission, Beatdapp has signed an exclusive agreement with Calgary-based blockchain developer GuildOne to manage digital rights related to streaming media services in India and Japan using blockchain technologies.
GuildOne acts on behalf of digital rights holders, such as artists, labels and producers, to identify when their digital assets have been streamed, calculate the royalties that are associated with those assets and execute the royalty transaction, ensuring all parties get paid what they are owed.
Already successful in Oil & Gas, GuildOne built one of the first enterprise blockchain rights management systems globally.
Under the terms of the three-year agreement, GuildOne will use Beatdapp’s services, along with information provided by rights holders to identify entitlements owed to those rights holders, ensuring that they receive accurate royalty payouts.
GuildOne will then use its patent-pending ConTracks smart contract technology on R3’s Corda blockchain platform to execute the royalty payments.
It’s an end-to-end solution that allows each partner to do what they’re best at. And it will likely open some doors for “measuring and usage” partnerships for Beatdapp in the entire R3 ecosystem. R3 has raised over $100 million and is backed by Japan’s SBI Group.
“Beatdapp’s technology ensures that labels and artists invoice correctly from the outset, and allows DSPs avoid costly, time consuming audits,” said Andrew Batey Co-CEO of Beatdapp.
“To partner with a leading expert in the payment space to ensure our verified usage reports yield faster, more accurate payouts to artists and labels is a great outcome for everyone involved. After a year of hard work behind the scenes, we’re delighted that day has come!”
GuildOne’s CEO James Graham shares Batey’s enthusiasm, “This is a transformative event for the streaming industry, bringing together two leaders in the blockchain space to meet the needs of artists, labels and other rights holders.”
Founded in 2018, Beatdapp had a banner 2019 winning the People’s Choice Award in the 2019 New Ventures BC Competition, raising $3.2 million and adding prime minister Stephen Harper to their advisory board.