Impact of Blockchain Technology on the Music Industry
Sang-Kyun Kim, Youngmin Kim, Byoungsoo Koh, Hyun Jung · Journal of Broadcast Engineering · 2023
recoupment of costs.The net result: little or no royalties land in the artist's hands.Conversely, in the U.S., some non-interactive services are achieving better transparency regarding their payouts because those royalties are routed through SoundExchange, which pays out statutory rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board, without flowing through intermediaries. __ THE BLACK BOXLARGE POOLS OF ROYALTY REVENUE END UP OUTSIDE the artist's reach in a so-called "black box"-where rightful owners of royalty revenue cannot be accurately identified because of a lack of an industry-wide system for tying usage to ownership.Major labels and publishers often receive advance payments from streaming services, and it is unclear what happens to any advance monies that are not earned out via streams during the advance period.Major labels also have equity ownership shares in most streaming services-stakes they acquire by licensing their catalogues at sub-market rates.When those stakes become liquid, the proceeds fail to flow through to those catalogue artists.In many instances, mechanical royalty payments, PRO payments, and other royalties similarly fail to reach rights owners for similar reasons-and there are few financial incentives for those holding the money to find the rightful owners. U.