DLT and Blockchain in the 2021 Music Industry: State of the Art

Follow-up article on ‘Blockchain in the Music Industry: Signs of the New Paradigm?’ (2019)Originally published in Paradigm blog.The pandemic affected many industries, and the music industry was no exception: retail store closures, tour cancellations, and venues closing their doors, and the list goes on. You simply couldn’t just go out and buy a record at your local store. Live shows began to seem to be something supernatural, or tales of a long-forgotten time. Concerts which were previously one of the main sources of income for musicians are now almost nowhere to be seen (apart from e.g. a unique pair of the Flaming Lips gigs, where both the band and their audience were inside individual inflatable balls — as means of defending against the virus, which was one of the few exceptions that prove the trend).Astoundingly, even so, the industry manages to grow and thrive by finding other ways to survive.In 2020, in the USA, overall recorded music revenue increased by more than 9% to $12.2 billion [According to the RIAA’s annual year-end report]. That growth was primarily sustained by more money coming from streaming services generating $10.1 billion in revenue in 2020 — up from $8.9 billion in 2019. 2020 marked the sixth consecutive year of this subsector growth that had previously struggled with declining revenues for 15 years.Of the major streaming platforms, expectedly Spotify and Apple Music were the biggest contributors, generating $7 billion in revenue. Concurrently, the average number of subscriptions in 2020 increased to 75.5 million — up from 60.4 million. [Check out ‘The Best Online Music Streaming Services for 2021’ by PC Magazine to compare the platforms].When you put all those numbers together, in the previous year, music streaming, both subscription-based and ad-supported, accounted for 83% of the industry’s total revenue — up from just 7%…