The open standards project Utopia Genesis Foundation is planning the December launch of a blockchain platform that will allow musicians to sell their own music while maintaining rights and gathering data. The foundation was formed with the aim to provide an open and standardized process for the music industry to track, process and tokenize rights.
As of today, the Utopia Open Platform is running live directly on its own mainnet. The Utopia Genesis Foundation also announced it will be using Bitfinex’s Autonomous Token Sale technology to conduct the initial exchange offering (IEO) for the project’s native currency, UOP.
The new project will help both artists and record labels to better understand consumer behaviour by tracking their music consumption via the blockchain. This offers a range of beenfits, including better planning for tours, optimized release dates and several other analytical advantages. The foundation hopes that the Utopia Open Platform will help emerging, independent artists to establish a stronger foothold in the global music industry. The open and decentralized nature of blockchain has previously proven useful in supporting marginalized or remote communities and these same characteristics could be a huge boost for struggling musicians.
From the Utopia Open Protocol (UOP) press release: “By using the platform, record labels will be able to access geographic consumption data to more selectively plan artist tours, and artists can use the applications developed on UOP to optimize and streamline releases and promotional efforts, achieving better results and deeper market penetration.”
The Benefits of Blockchain
The new platform will be launched with the Genesis Application, which allows artists to profit from sales while maintaining a degree of rights to their music projects. Blockchain makes it possible for artists to sell a share of their music’s copyright revenue to the community without the need for third-party mediation. They can then tokenize their rights with the UOP cryptocurrency and leverage the Utopia Open Platform for data tracking and marketing.
This application is the first of its kind to allow for thousands of owners of one project, which will empower community building, as artists will be able to tokenize their music rights and interact with fans and investors to crowdfund their projects. With popular music apps like Spotify already facing controversy regarding low payment of artists, Utopia Open Platform could be the savior the music scene needs. The addition of trackable data gives it an edge over other platforms, giving artists the power to make more accurate and profitable marketing decisions.
Developers are finding that combining blockchain with big data allows new and innovative ways to incentivize user interaction with monetary rewards. This adds a new dimension to the listening experience and motivates artists to capitalize on the new technology in creative ways.
“The Utopia Music Open Platform will revolutionize the way the music industry interacts with data” said Thomas Contin, President of Utopia Genesis Foundation. “While the two often go hand in hand, data is often quite underutilized and our platform aims to change this by providing an open-sourced platform for any third party to build new technology, products and services on, which in turn will help to advance the industry at a much faster rate.”
