Australasian Blockchain Music Association launches, offers “diverse new opportunities” to the music industry

The Australasian Blockchain Music Association (ABMA) has officially launched with an office in Sydney after the appointment of Rico Soto as its director.

ABMA (http://abma.asn.au) was set up last December by a group of investors and enthusiasts who wanted to assist startups and entrepreneurs who wish to develop ventures focusing on the music industry using blockchain technology.

Soto, a music entrepreneur and digital designer who came on board a few weeks ago, has hit the ground running.

ABMA has been in discussions with everyone from Spotify to educational facilities and sponsors to music associations.

“We’re creating alliances that can create a community,” Soto tells TMN.

“We want to talk to tech start ups and investors and musicians and get them to connect with each other.”

The association believes that Blockchain offers “diverse new opportunities for the music industry”, and can create fairer, faster and a more empowering landscape for musicians and fans alike.

Part of the action plan will include networking events and panels to discuss topics including: ICOs, Blockchain applications in music, existing and upcoming platforms with this technology, acquisition of investment, startup advice, mentorship and points of interest for future development.

Soto says these will be held in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and hopefully also in Adelaide and on the Gold Coast.

“Obviously we think there’s going to be strong growth in Australia and New Zealand, but we’re speaking to people in Dubai who want to exchange links and opportunities and also take in Asia and the Middle East.”

Two years ago, blockchain was a niche technology that appealed to early adapter companies.

But due to the growing popularity of Bitcoin currency (“the tip of the iceberg”)  “it’s opened the eyes of the general public to the potential that it has and what it offers to different markets.

“Now we’ve seen a lot of companies have developed in this area and they’re using the technology for things that can be practically implemented and also, obviously for musicians.

“There is a lot of movement and awareness. Companies are either trying to incorporate it into their systems or trying to work with it on some level.

“We’ve seen companies raising millions of dollars of capital  

“We’ll hopefully see regulations hopefully, and through initiatives like ABMA as a forum for the Australian and New Zealand community, that’ll make things grow faster for audiences, and in our case, with musicians.

“We’ll see quite rapidly integration of this technology with licensing, how licensing companies are tracking the usage of their apps, how people are getting paid, and how royalties are distributed.”

This is how it works for, say, someone who writes and/or records a song.

Hearing the song could start it off on a journey on which the artist uses a smart contract (essentially a template for services and usage) to work out who they want to do business with.

These people can interact or do business about the song directly with each other.

This could include a fan, a potential collaborator, a digital service provider like Spotify or iTunes, an advertiser or sponsor, a  radio station, a music licensing association or a video production crew.

Each party on a blockchain can access the entire database and its history without the need for an intermediary, and with no single party controlling the data.

These are transparent because they are visible to each other and cannot be reversed.

Hence these are used for contracts and the faster and more efficient collection of royalties and other kinds of payments where the artist feasibly is the first to see the profits rather than being at the end of the chain.

In other words, the creative is in the middle of their ecosystem rather than being on the fraying edge of someone else’s.

Currently many ANZ start-ups are at South By Southwest (SXSW) looking for investment, networks and mentors.

Soto hopes that soon Australian and New Zealand players can find these locally, and not feel the need to go overseas.