Ujo Music, a platform that allows artists to own and control their creative content, plans on using blockchain technology in order to launch a full commercial music platform in early 2017.
According to a post by Musically, the company stated that the first version of the service will enable artists to register their music on the Ethereum blockchain with ease and make it available for fans through streaming or download.
“We are building a service that allows you to manage your artistic identity, your music and licensing on your own terms. We are starting small, with music, on-boarding eager, forward-looking artists to empower sustainable creativity,” the company explained, as reported by Musically.
Ujo worked with musician Imogen Heap in 2015 and released her track ‘Tiny Human’ using blockchain-based distribution. Fans were able to buy licences to download, stream, remix and sync the song, with their payments, automatically split between Heap and her collaborators on the track. The startup is also working with a number of labels in order to “re-digitize their catalogue for use in open-source blockchain systems”, at the same time encouraging developers to build apps on its platform.
Apart from Ujo Music, a number of music industry projects have turned to blockchain technology including Mycelia, launched by singer, songwriter, and producer Imogen Heap, and Dot Blockchain Music, launched by PledgeMusic founder Benji Rogers. Other projects include Blokur, Aurovine, Resonate, Peertracks, Stem and Bittunes that already has users in 70 countries.
