Dinosaur IT companies such as Spotify in Sweden, DEEZER in France, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and YouTube Music in the US, and QQ Music in China are jumping into the music streaming market. For the past five years, the music streaming market has been experiencing annual growth of 42% (Reference: PwC consumer sales) and accounts for more than 60% of the total music market (Reference: IFPI wholesale statistics).
But… why musicians are not benefiting from their elaborately created music and consumed like a snack and disappear? It is SOBA’s mission to solve this problem.
Music industry needs blockchain
The problem with music industry is the irrational and opaque profit distribution structure. After paying series of royalties to production companies, distributors, and other related middlemen involved, the small amount of profit left goes to the musician. In addition, the process is not disclosed to the public, making it difficult to set a better system for the musicians involved in the field.
Expansion of the music streaming industry enabled listeners to access a wide range of music at lower cost, but they cannot experience analog sensibilities such as buying CDs or waiting in line for a limited-edition album. The only way to express fandom in a streaming service was to listen or to download the music which led to the loss of bond between musicians and the fans.
The music market integrates blockchain technology to solve this problem. Decentralized blockchain technology makes it possible to produce/buy/sell/listen/manage music in a fair and transparent way. By reducing the number of middlemen, bigger royalties will be paid to musicians, and producers and/or listeners can obtain full ownership of the music.
Mediachain (acquired by Spotify in 2017) sharing open-source information for digital music production, Ujo eliminating the royalty system by allowing musicians to directly upload originals, and Musicoin utilizing sharing economy method to support P2P transactions for production/consumption/distribution are the examples.
OMI(Open Music Initiative), a non-profit organization, is figuring out how to use blockchain technology to identify copyright holders and creators for fair royalty distribution. SoundCloud, Red Bull Media, Netflix, Sony, YouTube, and Spotify have joined as members. Many players in the music market want to integrate blockchain technology.
Next-generation entertainment service from SOBA
Nevertheless, Choon, a promising blockchain music service, went bankrupt in December. Many players want to utilize blockchain technology as a solution, but it is difficult to apply at the commercial level. One of the biggest reasons is the liquidity, rather than the blockchain technology itself. This is because users have to install a crypto wallet and buy tokens on exchange in order to use the platform. It is difficult to use the service without earnest needs. The SOBA platform is created by thoroughly analyzing the needs of users to solve the liquidity problem.
Musician’s personal branding channel
SOBA turns everything that musicians produce into digital cards, including sound sources/videos/pictures/goods/tickets/memberships. Beyond producing albums or performing performances for personalization, musicians now have more options and they are the income-generating assets that they can hold.
Providing full ownership and investment value
SOBA’s music loyalty card allows users to hold for dividends generated from copyright fees. Just like purchasing shares on the stock market, users purchase SOBA’s digital cards of promising music. Since the P2P marketplace where the digital card can be traded will be launched, it is possible to resell the cards at a high value when the music source becomes popular.
Strengthening the musician-fan bond
On the SOBA platform, musicians can sell well-made sound sources as blind products to raise funds for the production. Fans can now invest in the music that they prefer and recommend them to the musicians. Therefore, they can release the music album together. There is no other way that makes a stronger bond than how SOBA does as fans can directly participate in the music production and investment, and even own the limited-edition digital cards.
Digital card purchase/rental/trade available on SOBA
The SOBA platform is scheduled for beta release in March. It is a third-party platform where consumers, general users, digital cardholders, suppliers, and artists meet. Suppliers can sell digital cards, and consumers can buy/rent/trade. P2P trade will be available on the marketplace.
The UI/UX usability test for the beta release is completed. We are currently planning to develop a program that allows users to deposit digital assets to generate additional revenue by entering a partnership with Tokamak, a blockchain technology company. To provide perfect services to users, we are working days and nights these days.
SOBA wishes musicians could communicate with their fans in a variety of ways and hopes that the fans could also show their love and passion on musicians by maintaining close bonds with them. We hope that the SOBA platform could become an exciting playground for listeners and musicians!
Check out our communities!
Medium https://sobamusicvideo.medium.com/
Reddit https://www.reddit.com/user/SOBA_Official
Discord https://discord.gg/2fEuztPwHr
Twitter https://discord.gg/2fEuztPwHr
Telegram https://t.me/sobaglobal
SOBA token http://sobatoken.io/
