NFTs, the metaverse and the music biz

[Johndenis]

Hello all, I'm aware there was controversy last year over the suggestion certain acts would release NFTs. I don't fully understand the details but am going to deliver training to work colleagues this week regarding the metaverse, the music biz, and NFTs. I'd be grateful for any helpful articles, podcasts or YouTube videos that anyone could point me towards. Thank you. 

[incident]

Here you go.

[gfa]

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture-council/articles/artists-can-combine-nfts-and-music-to-grow-their-brands-1333829/

Main con is the environment (or at least people think that, it seems to be getting sorted out now but a lot of people don't want to hear it)

[benc]

This is the best explainer that I've come across 

 

[Neil]

2 hours ago, Johndenis said:

am going to deliver training to work colleagues this week

is that in glasgow or the middle east?

[Neil]

NFT'S =paying loads for a secret receipt.

 

[benc]

Being into photography, it's been hard to avoid the 'NFT ART' chat

 

Earlier this year the Grandson of August Sandor (German Photographer) made his archive of photographs available as NFTs and to be sold. The auction happened and people paid their money and seemed happy with what they won.

I'm still unsure what they thought that had won, but as with other NFT at it seemed to be a link to a JPEG hosted on one of the Marketplace (i'm not sure what they're called) websites.

Except the grandson didn't own the archive and the Marketplace was forced to remove the JPEGs. So those that won the auction, ended up with a link to a black webpage.

I'm not sure if the story moved on since earlier this year when I was following it. and I'm not sure if answers the OPs question, but thought Id share

Edited October 14, 2022 by benc

[TheDayman]

Feels like forever since I’ve posted here… Glasto is always so amazing that I genuinely don’t have the heart to come back here after it’s finished! Plus I spent so much time here pre-Glasto that I plenty of work to catch up with after…

With ticket day only 2 weeks away, I’ve been lurking around again and I thought this would be a great spot to get me posting! Without divulging too much detail, I work in the technical side of an large industry similar to music and NFT’s, the metaverse and Web3 are definitely on our radar. Hopefully I can give you a different angle to think about.

I always find it funny when I see people saying NFT’s are stupid (or a ponzi-scheme) because it’s both a correct and incorrect statement.

NFT has become an acronym that rather sloppily describes tokenized digital “art”. However, that’s not really accurate. The NFT, or non-fungible token, is the unique digital identifier that is used to certify authenticity and ownership of the asset. The digital art itself isn’t the NFT, the NFT is the irrefutable digital contract that proves a person owns somethings and/or confirms the transfer of ownership of an asset from one person to another.

So, when somebody pays an exorbitant amount of money for a picture of a cartoon monkey, the monkey is the digital art and the NFT is the contract. And yes, spending a bag of money on a cartoon monkey is definitely stupid and definitely has hallmarks of a ponzi-scheme (IMO).

However, let’s break down that transaction and relate it to the music industry.

Person A has a monkey. Person B buys the monkey. An NFT is issued via. a smart contract. Monkey is sent from Person A to Person B. It is confirmed on the blockchain that Person B is now the owner of said monkey.

A similar common transaction between an artist and a fan is the sale of a ticket. However, artists tend not to be in a position to distribute tickets to fans directly themselves, so they’ll bring in someone like Ticketmaster to facilitate the transaction (where additional costs/fees are added).

However. if you tokenize tickets (rather than a silly monkey), an artist (or venue or festival), can sell their tickets directly to fans, cutting out the middleman and reducing costs. There’s also some really interesting things we can do with a smart contract ticket too. For example, NFT tickets can pretty much eradicate touting and the secondary market place. How? Rules can easily be written into the smart contract stating that transfer of ownership can never go above the original ticket price. In fact, anything you can code (which is pretty much anything), can be written in to the smart contract behind the ticket.

On the fan side, all we see if is the digital ticket arriving in our digital wallet.

This is just one example of how Web3 and NFT’s could reshape the music industry. There's lots more I could write about when we start thinking about building more direct and intimate connections between artists and fans or even just where everything is going to be in 5 or 10 years time. However, that could take all night and even I wouldn't want to read it!

I know I’ve missed your training workshop but if you have specific questions, just shout. As I say, for my own job I’ve been researching quite a bit in this area over the last couple of years and am more than happy to give a steer if needed.

[Neil]

1 hour ago, TheDayman said:

Feels like forever since I’ve posted here… Glasto is always so amazing that I genuinely don’t have the heart to come back here after it’s finished! Plus I spent so much time here pre-Glasto that I plenty of work to catch up with after…

With ticket day only 2 weeks away, I’ve been lurking around again and I thought this would be a great spot to get me posting! Without divulging too much detail, I work in the technical side of an large industry similar to music and NFT’s, the metaverse and Web3 are definitely on our radar. Hopefully I can give you a different angle to think about.

I always find it funny when I see people saying NFT’s are stupid (or a ponzi-scheme) because it’s both a correct and incorrect statement.

NFT has become an acronym that rather sloppily describes tokenized digital “art”. However, that’s not really accurate. The NFT, or non-fungible token, is the unique digital identifier that is used to certify authenticity and ownership of the asset. The digital art itself isn’t the NFT, the NFT is the irrefutable digital contract that proves a person owns somethings and/or confirms the transfer of ownership of an asset from one person to another.

So, when somebody pays an exorbitant amount of money for a picture of a cartoon monkey, the monkey is the digital art and the NFT is the contract. And yes, spending a bag of money on a cartoon monkey is definitely stupid and definitely has hallmarks of a ponzi-scheme (IMO).

However, let’s break down that transaction and relate it to the music industry.

Person A has a monkey. Person B buys the monkey. An NFT is issued via. a smart contract. Monkey is sent from Person A to Person B. It is confirmed on the blockchain that Person B is now the owner of said monkey.

A similar common transaction between an artist and a fan is the sale of a ticket. However, artists tend not to be in a position to distribute tickets to fans directly themselves, so they’ll bring in someone like Ticketmaster to facilitate the transaction (where additional costs/fees are added).

However. if you tokenize tickets (rather than a silly monkey), an artist (or venue or festival), can sell their tickets directly to fans, cutting out the middleman and reducing costs. There’s also some really interesting things we can do with a smart contract ticket too. For example, NFT tickets can pretty much eradicate touting and the secondary market place. How? Rules can easily be written into the smart contract stating that transfer of ownership can never go above the original ticket price. In fact, anything you can code (which is pretty much anything), can be written in to the smart contract behind the ticket.

On the fan side, all we see if is the digital ticket arriving in our digital wallet.

This is just one example of how Web3 and NFT’s could reshape the music industry. There's lots more I could write about when we start thinking about building more direct and intimate connections between artists and fans or even just where everything is going to be in 5 or 10 years time. However, that could take all night and even I wouldn't want to read it!

I know I’ve missed your training workshop but if you have specific questions, just shout. As I say, for my own job I’ve been researching quite a bit in this area over the last couple of years and am more than happy to give a steer if needed.

all you've described there is what people were saying about blockchain technology for tickets,  these are solutions looking for a problem to fix,  when there is no problem.

[TheDayman]

24 minutes ago, Neil said:

all you've described there is what people were saying about blockchain technology for tickets,  these are solutions looking for a problem to fix,  when there is no problem.

Well, I did actually a highlight a few problems - directly through touting and the secondary market, as well as indirectly through 3rd parties fees and otherwise.

In the industry I'm in (sport), there is a problem in being able to sell hundred's of thousands of tickets to major global events (leading to long queue times - sometimes many hours). This is only going to be compounded in the future when things like VR and augemented reality mature.

In 10 years time, we could be in a siutation where tickets for the Fifa World Cup Final or the NFL Superbowl may not just be physical in-venue seats but also virtual seats sold hundreds, or even millions, of times over. The right blockchain technology, or maybe more accurately put it's evolution in the form of Directed Acyclic Graph, addresses these kinds of current transaction volumes as well as what we could potentially face in the future.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in Bitcoin or the vast majority of other distributed ledgers that are out there. Maybe a necessary step to get to where we are but essentially no better flying on a wright brothers plane now. IMO 99% of the crypto world is a ponzi-scheme but there are some that provide genuine utility.

Edited October 23, 2022 by TheDayman

[Neil]

53 minutes ago, TheDayman said:

Well, I did actually a highlight a few problems - directly through touting and the secondary market, as well as indirectly through 3rd parties fees and otherwise.

In the industry I'm in (sport), there is a problem in being able to sell hundred's of thousands of tickets to major global events (leading to long queue times - sometimes many hours). This is only going to be compounded in the future when things like VR and augemented reality mature.

In 10 years time, we could be in a siutation where tickets for the Fifa World Cup Final or the NFL Superbowl may not just be physical in-venue seats but also virtual seats sold hundreds, or even millions, of times over. The right blockchain technology, or maybe more accurately put it's evolution in the form of Directed Acyclic Graph, addresses these kinds of current transaction volumes as well as what we could potentially face in the future.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in Bitcoin or the vast majority of other distributed ledgers that are out there. Maybe a necessary step to get to where we are but essentially no better flying on a wright brothers plane now. IMO 99% of the crypto world is a ponzi-scheme but there are some that provide genuine utility.

Touting is not a problem, no one pays more than they can afford, the artist gets their expected ticket money. If they object to someone able to find a margin, they could have that themselves, via dynamic pricing. 

[TheDayman]

Respectfully, I'd argue touting is a problem. In particular, professional touting.

If we differ on that, I'll instead highlight ticket fraud, which last year cost consumers £4 million in the UK alone. Tokenized ticketing can pratically eliminate this (if done correctly).

And just again to highlight - I'm not a crypto person, my belief is that the vast, vast majority is a ponzi-scheme. With that said, we are getting to a point where certain DLT's are now providing genuine utility in a cost effective and meaningful way across a whole host of industries.

Edited October 23, 2022 by TheDayman

[Johndenis]

On 10/10/2022 at 4:09 PM, Neil said:

is that in glasgow or the middle east?

UK

[Neil]

2 minutes ago, Johndenis said:

UK

The promoter is in the position to undermine the business model of the touts, doesn't need block chain to do it 

[Johndenis]

On 10/23/2022 at 7:45 PM, TheDayman said:

Feels like forever since I’ve posted here… Glasto is always so amazing that I genuinely don’t have the heart to come back here after it’s finished! Plus I spent so much time here pre-Glasto that I plenty of work to catch up with after…

With ticket day only 2 weeks away, I’ve been lurking around again and I thought this would be a great spot to get me posting! Without divulging too much detail, I work in the technical side of an large industry similar to music and NFT’s, the metaverse and Web3 are definitely on our radar. Hopefully I can give you a different angle to think about.

I always find it funny when I see people saying NFT’s are stupid (or a ponzi-scheme) because it’s both a correct and incorrect statement.

NFT has become an acronym that rather sloppily describes tokenized digital “art”. However, that’s not really accurate. The NFT, or non-fungible token, is the unique digital identifier that is used to certify authenticity and ownership of the asset. The digital art itself isn’t the NFT, the NFT is the irrefutable digital contract that proves a person owns somethings and/or confirms the transfer of ownership of an asset from one person to another.

So, when somebody pays an exorbitant amount of money for a picture of a cartoon monkey, the monkey is the digital art and the NFT is the contract. And yes, spending a bag of money on a cartoon monkey is definitely stupid and definitely has hallmarks of a ponzi-scheme (IMO).

However, let’s break down that transaction and relate it to the music industry.

Person A has a monkey. Person B buys the monkey. An NFT is issued via. a smart contract. Monkey is sent from Person A to Person B. It is confirmed on the blockchain that Person B is now the owner of said monkey.

A similar common transaction between an artist and a fan is the sale of a ticket. However, artists tend not to be in a position to distribute tickets to fans directly themselves, so they’ll bring in someone like Ticketmaster to facilitate the transaction (where additional costs/fees are added).

However. if you tokenize tickets (rather than a silly monkey), an artist (or venue or festival), can sell their tickets directly to fans, cutting out the middleman and reducing costs. There’s also some really interesting things we can do with a smart contract ticket too. For example, NFT tickets can pretty much eradicate touting and the secondary market place. How? Rules can easily be written into the smart contract stating that transfer of ownership can never go above the original ticket price. In fact, anything you can code (which is pretty much anything), can be written in to the smart contract behind the ticket.

On the fan side, all we see if is the digital ticket arriving in our digital wallet.

This is just one example of how Web3 and NFT’s could reshape the music industry. There's lots more I could write about when we start thinking about building more direct and intimate connections between artists and fans or even just where everything is going to be in 5 or 10 years time. However, that could take all night and even I wouldn't want to read it!

I know I’ve missed your training workshop but if you have specific questions, just shout. As I say, for my own job I’ve been researching quite a bit in this area over the last couple of years and am more than happy to give a steer if needed.

Thanks very much.  The example I used for NFTs was that you may own a print of the Mona Lisa (comparable to a screenshot of a digital asset), but the only actual copy of it is hanging in the Louvre (and if you have an NFT you can prove ownership - or at least certain exclusive rights to use - the actual digital asset).  I'm also intrigued by the video shared by @bencwhich suggests that NFTs are a big scam to introduce liquidity to cryptocurrencies!

I agree that blockchain could have implications for secondary markets and touting.  Of course, there is also the argument that touts create scarcity by buying up tickets.  And if they're cut out of the loop, a lot of expensive tickets may actually go unsold.  I think the Stones and Ed Sheeran have each come up against this conundrum.