A new blockchain-powered platform, combining streaming services and digital payments, aims to pay musicians 80 percent of the streaming revenue from their tracks, such as subscription services and advertising revenue — more than is reported to be standard practice[1].
Choon[2], a recently launched blockchain-based[3] platform, describes itself as “the blockchain’s music solution.” In essence, every time a track is played, the artist earns cryptocurrency. This could, in turn, eliminate another major problem that Choon has highlighted with regular artist royalty systems: as payment is daily, there will no longer be extended wait periods for artists to see a financial return following the streaming of their tracks.
At the time of writing, the Choon ecosystem has over 4,500 artists registered, the company says. According to their Medium blog, almost 6000 tracks have already been uploaded[4] since the platform launch, and the number of new tracks has been increasing 25 percent every week.
Enhancing the current payment system
The music industry has recently come under scrutiny for how unfairly artists are treated by major labels and streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. Musicians have highlighted the high volume of revenue that is allocated to streaming services and record companies, instead of back to the creators themselves. A notable example[5] of this was global best-selling artist Taylor Swift removing her music from Spotify for three years, as a protest against the share of royalties artists receive from the platform.
Choon has released their white paper[6], which sets out the four key methods with which the team aims to enhance the current payment system. First, they would introduce democracy by removing middlemen and enabling direct payment between artists and their fans. Choon also
