Bitcoin Forum

I was wondering if it would be possible to store music on the blockchain the same way the ledger is stored? Then you could sell private keys that give a program access to the data so that the music can be streamed directly from the blockchain? Is this kind of thing possible with bitcoin or another alt-coin in the future? Because this would have positive impact on the music industry as well as any other industry that are having issues with piracy. I'm just trying to stay informed about the potential impact of this technology.   

an altcoin with a 5mb per transaction rule,,, then anything is possible.

just dont expect anyone to download the blockchain

Actually, they could store licensing info on the blockchain.
So, no need for 5mb ;)

I can't imagine how big the blockchain would be if the actual music is stored on it. The purpose of the blockchain is to solve the trust issue on an open ledger. Music doesn't need that. It would be pointless to create a music blockchain.

Theres no need for music to be stored on it just licensing info.
However, how is one to overcome piracy?

You might wish to read a bit about Bitshares Music.  They're trying to tackle a similar problem, but streaming off the blockchain would be inferior to just downloading an mp3.  A specialized DAC/DAE could do this type of stuff and we may very well see it disrupt the music industry 10 years from now.  You pay the DAC and it gives you the music.  Eliminating the parasitic middlemen that have plagued the music industry for decades.

This is becoming a FAQ.

• The Bitcoin blockchain uses "proof-of-work" to prevent counterfeiting.
• The entertainment industry has been pushing to conflate unauthorized copying with counterfeiting physical goods.
• People then confuse the Block-chain with "copy protection": when in fact, it has the opposite purpose.

People are encouraged to keep a copy of the block-chain. Most people don't bother because it is inconvenient or expensive. The only closely guarded secret in bitcoin is the private keys for spending coins. They are guarded secrets because they have no "copy protection".

Music with effective copy protection is worthless anyway: it is a means to share information. If it can't be heard, what is the point?

I see, thanks guys you gave me something to think about. It's not about the data on the blockchain it's about the ownership. So you are saying would need a completely different system to store sensitive hidden data like licence info or software keys.

Thanks dwma, I will look up the Bitshares Music project. So does anybody know of an alt-coin project that attempts to facilitate the transfer of ownership of encrypted or hidden data?

Encryption is not copy protection (http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt).

TL;DR: Your are trusting the viewer to not retain the decryption key after viewing the work.

the way i interpreted what the OP meant was actual songs were stored on the blockchain. and a program such as itunes stored privkeys. so that when a user buys a song they are just buying the privkey to access the song. the flaw i seen was a big fat blockchain bloating peoples hard drives.

the other concept as those quoted above have envisioned is that each public key represents a song licence. and that the software stores the privkeys to show users have access to the licence to then be able to play a song from a separate music cloud host. but that's then centralizing it, where musicians have to upload to a central cloud  and then get the service to sell the songs on their behalf.

i see another flaw, which affects both cases. the communication of the privkey. if a customer gets to see the privkey he can pass it to all his contacts and they get the song for free. so how to update the privkey wallet of customers, with new privkeys without them actually seeing the privkey.

Could you do this using a protocol in a similar way that bitcoin does? You could force the nodes on the network to change the encryption keys during a transfer of ownership. The same way bitcoin does by signing data, hashing, then signing again. Am I wrong? Then the network could serve music to only one node at a time. Discrepancies in the protocol would result in a disconnect from the network.

No. (http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt)

Music copying will be possible, even if music is streamed. One could record directly from the sound output.  Back in the 80s people could did that, and that will always work.

I think the music industry needs to change business model, the current model is not sustainable. For example, an ad-based model. Place ads on a site where you can listen your songs. Each time a fan listens a song online, you get paid by the ads.  Or incorporate ads inside your mp3s (or lyrics) that people can download for free, paid by customer companies. An alternative is the Google data collection business model. To go against copying is a dead end, we are reaching the technological state where we can make atom based movies and store data inside dna.

No, bitcoin don't have all of this power !

If we want to save music industry, we mustn't download music from internet  ;D

maybe the question should be next: could Bitcoin replace iTunes in the music industry?

maybe can do it that but only time will tell

Interesting concept. As we know, artist are already proving that they are embracing Bitcoin. We see this with the large number of musicians who have recently begun to accept Bitcoin.

People need to prove to the music industry that Bitcoin is worth embracing first.  Recently, the first major label artist announced that they were accepting bitcoin and Reddit barely flinched.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/search?q=mastodon&restrict_sr=on

This is silliness, nothing can save the music industry as we know it. The future of digital content (be it music, videos, whatever) is entirely donation / crowdsource based. All information wants to be free, and it will get its way sooner or later. Ergo, copyright will soon be obsolete.

Look at Star Citizen for a good example of what is possible with a donation model.

thinking of methods that can work

imagine a song had a bitcoin address, users had a single address.. and this was all controlled by spotify/itunes/future youtube app

a user has their own wallet address to deposit funds into to cover costs(subscriptions). when a person chooses a song and pushes play, a couple bit's are sent to the songs address and spotify verifies which song was selected and the users client plays that song.

spotify/youtube no longer see's an api like "franky1 requests barbiegirl" and then streams the song to franky1

instead the services just check the blockchain and the transaction would look like this (standard raw transaction)

vin: 1FrankyAddress
Vout:1AquaBarbiegirladdress
Value: 0.00000300
Vout:1youtubegreedaddress
Value: 0.00000100

thus seeing franky1 chose barbiegirl and then streams the song to franky1. youtube gets their 25% cut and the music artist gets theirs. no payment processors, no fiddly accounting packages, no big databases of whats been requested, etc, etc

i thought of the brainfart above after hearing on the radio of youtube wanting to start a subcription service:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27891883

its not about an API exactly, its more about after the API, that then has to reference a database, and then has to deduct funds from user accounts, then has to do many other tasks.

bitcoin can get rid of alot of code, and other unneeded things and ensure the music labels get funds that they can clearly see and use instantly.
imagine the music labels not having to submit a privkey to youtube, just a public key to receive funds and to be part of youtube/spotify

its now known that music labels get paid $0.007per stream/play. so the solution in my last post can take alot of code out of the subscription process, remove accounting/payment processing and gives msic artists instant access to their funds.

i only mention it incase any geeks that love music wanted to develop such an app, and charge.. $0.008 per song(to incentivise record labls to use the geeks new app)

all music artists need to do then is upload their mastercopy of their song, give it a title, description, and post a unique bitcoin public address to receive revenue on

The industry could end up dying, and be much better off for it.

Artists can now produce recordings themselves, distribute recordings themselves, promote themselves, and now they can receive the payments themselves. Almost all the middlemen are gone when it's structured like that. I feel tempted to say that better artists will get more recognition if that became the prevalent model (some less commercially oriented artists these days are still seduced by the cachet of signing a record contract)

music industry wont die. just the corporations in it... music and bitcoin cant be killed,only businesses/humans can

my idea could be developed by anyone and offer artists a better rate then spotify/youtube. which will help the music industry, just not th music industrialists

Yes, that's what I meant by saying the industry will die. Get rid of the middlemen, who are simply parasites

well the way to get rid of the middle man would be to invent a flash player that only activates when it see's a TX appear.
that way music artists can have their own player on their own website with a QR code showing. and when someone pays to the qr code, it plays.. that is how i see a decentralised way, but i know users prefer to have one app that brings all songs together (a middleman)

Well said. The blockchain is going to do this for a whole slew of different industries. BTW, you and are going to get along like peanut butter and sex.

You have a great imagination and a good idea, somehow i still believe that music industry can't be saved in that way, since it's not preventing piracy, it's just making sure that the one that paid has the ability to stream. Problem comes when someone want's to audio-tape stream and put it on U-Torrent or simmilar. Torrent's have to be banned and blocked by every ISP and problem is solved forever.

imagine that when playing there was a (out of ear's frequency range) a soundbite that was the address of the user. you personally cant hear it. but any sound ripping software or lowtech (tapedeck to speaker) method, recorded it. and then when on torrent sites. the music labels can use sound software to get to the address soundbite part. find out who ripped it. then ban that user from ever getting another song from them.

similar theory to how all files have metadata hidden inside

.. a new thought 1 minute after writing ..

now comes the problem of multiple user accounts to avoid the ban.

.. a new solution 1 minute after writing ..

knowing the address that recorded and uploaded to a torrent site. (if part of a subscriptions app where funds are deposited) youtube/spotify/bitcoin developed music service can then 'fine' deduct $0.0008 out of the users account per seed/leach sen on the torrent site, thus De-incentivising people from uploading to torrent sites as it would end up personally costing them

But you can still make software to sense those frequencies and to eliminate them or to modify them, by doing that you lost trace. And you have piracy again.

i know its impossible to stop it, but im just throwing out idea's to not make it so easy. and it all depends on how the users bitcoin address is addd into the song, to make it normally indistinguishable from the song itself

I'm not sure if people would go through the hassle of doing this rather than iTunes or Torrents

Free or paid music is so easy to download nowadays that it's hard to imagine people will actually pay for music. Theoretically it's possible to use blockchain-like technology to share data and use the blockchain as a form of DRM, but i'm not sure we can move away from our current systems.

It could make new games harder to pirate though.

I don't think the music industry necessarily needs saving. I do however think that btc had the ability to revolutionize the music industry. Artois are going to maybe be able to work support of as free agents once they doggie out they can make all of the profits from their records without the label taking such a huge cut.

I am all for decentralization, however for this to work you would need to eliminate sound.  ::)

As long as music makes sound, it will always and forever be able to be ripped and pirated using recording equipment and peer to peer technology.

Someone somewhere would pay for the song, rip it, and share it. That's just how it works and that's how it will always be.

When people have the choice in between free music or the same exact version of the music at a cost, they tend to choose the free music.

I guess this could possibly replace some pay-for-music services, but really who pays for music nowadays?

Yes in a sense that it can decentralize the music industry by allowing indie artists a mechanism to gain popularity and tips for their work
Or by charging a small transaction fee from each user that is pooled together into one larger transaction over time
Leaving a balance in that persons account that slowly decreases add a faucet if people want to contribute for free.

As a music player maybe if combined with something like Maidsafe and decentralized storage may work theoretically
How it would play an audio file is complicated though lol.

Microtransactions would be a better solution then trying to store music in the blockchain. Having that much data in the blockchain would be extremely expensive to store and have a TX confirmed.

Buying a single song with a credit card for $0.99 would likely cost the merchant close to $0.30 as most credit card processors charge $0.27 plus 3%, the same transaction on the blockchain would cost close to $.06 if anything at all.

that is way lot cheaper

It is a lot cheaper and the result will be that artists will get to keep substantially more of their revenue, it would be like them getting a 30% raise.

I suspect HDCP does something like this. Why else would the High-definition video formats use a 192kHz sample rate for all of the audio channels? To put that in perspective, FM stereo broadcasts fit in 200kHz of bandwidth.

For those not aware, Nyquist's theorem states that the sample rate need only be twice the highest frequency in the audio. That means that a 192kHz sample rate is able to encode audio up to a frequency of 96kHz. It is generally accepted that the limit of human hearing is only 20kHz. I am one of the rare people that can hear over 18kHz as an adult.

And yes, HDCP does allow the studios to remotely shut-down your Blu-ray player or monitor if it was used to produce a copy found on Torrent websites. Thing is, these HD formats are huge. Trans-coding is often used to get the file-size down. It may very well filter frequencies people can't hear. Edit: people don't rip the decoded frames on the way to the display anyway: they simply break AACS (the on-disk encryption) before HDCP even sees the video.

Indeed.  And ultimately, a company has already created a decentralized version of itunes that they call bittunes (http://www.bittunes.org/?page_id=16).  But I'd think the logical thing to do if you're a musician is to just cut out the middlemen entirely, or if you're going to, use something like Coinbase so you can keep all the bitcoins.  That way, artists could charge $0.99 and get the full $0.99 instead of that less the middleman's fee.  Ultimately, I suspect the centralized route is always going to be more popular though because it's just easier for people to look for music in a central place like iTunes (currently the dominant place to sell music).

Bitcoin is to the financial industry what BitTorrent is to the music industry

Everything could save by bitcoin, not only the music project could save by bitcoin but also all of project in the world could save by bitcoin, when you use bitcoin as your transaction you save your money for your future investment.

I believe it would be really possible for this to happen in the very near future. I think more research needs to be  put in place in that respect so this can become a reality. The music industry is really viable. Everything is possible with the right application of blockchain technology.

blockchain can save music industry like upload music, license music, chart music and many more.

That's quite possible. Even Movies as well. We can take an advantage from the Blockchain for that.. Bitcoin is so widely used cryptocurrency as of today.. The music industry is not dead, our music industry is constantly changing. But we need to eliminate the cons for that if there is. So if we can make use the power of blockchain, that would be a big YES.

I don't know about this but I feel this is profitable and has nothing to lose and I think the music industry if combined with bitcoin will use an advantage

Why does everything have to be moved to blockchain? Is the current world situation really that bad that blockchain needs to save it? I have nothing against the blockchain technology, obviously, but I think not everything should be in blockchain. Besides, what's wrong with using iTunes or Spotify anyway?

Bitcoin can help many issues in the life especially. Music is an essential aspect of human life but I don’t see how we would apply bitcoin in the music industry to save it. I believe  we can apply blockchain technology in many aspects in the music industry in terms of distribution and sales of music in the digital market.

Saving the music industry is another huge thing but I know some projects in the crypto market involved in music,  they are developing some projects that enhanced good music qualities,  other  is like an application that you can download all the music you want to download. Probably this can help to make the music industry lively.

The problem lies in the fact that with each new intermediary musician receives fewer and fewer profits. The number of intermediaries makes complicated music industry even more difficult. The industry includes performance rights organizations, record producers, studios, agents, distributors, etc. Everybody receives fees and musician in the last turn. The blockchain is capable to eliminate all those intermediaries. Blockchain can become a new platform for artists in all spheres (writers, painters, musicians, etc) which will help them to get well-deserved profit and protect their authorship. In particular, smart-contracts can reduce the difficulties of the industry and the importance of the major labels.   

The transformation of the music industry over the past twenty years has been enormously innovative yet challenging. Today, A music lover have easier access to more music than ever before, the unnumerable quantity of available options makes streaming services even more beneficial. It seems logical to assume that musicians themselves would have more fruitful returns as the digital market continues to expand at a rapid rate, and capital continues to flow into the digital music industry. In reality, however, the disbalance of the profit distribution structure, the existence of multiple middlemen, and outstanding issues of piracy continue to deny artists their fair share. They are receiving a historically low percentage of total revenue, typically from 10% to 20% of consumers’ payments. While platforms, major labels, distributors, and publishers may benefit from the digital transformation, artists are still not justly compensated for their creations. To sustain the growth in the digital music market, this chasm in terms of compensation between artist and middlemen should be filled.

hardly will do. but blockchain does. in fact it is already have. some artist already put their work on blockchain.

Yes I feel it can be applied in the music industry. Licensing, Contracts and Deals can be store on the blockchain as we as Smart Contracts to be released when some certain criteria are met (based on terrms and conditions).

so what you mean here is?we will be back oldschool using cartridges?😂😂😂

And for OPs question,i guess if not bitcoin can manage to save music,maybe in future altcoins can do such,remember in technology there is no impossible,unless you want to bring life from the dead lol

There are ICOs that have plans on bringing back the music industry, can someone atleast enlighten me on what ICO it is, I was skimming through then I saw it, unfortunately I was not able to remember the name, and I think it is a good idea.

  I think you can do an ICO on this issue because it's very potential. It also makes btc or other altcoins known. Many people in the world love music, they will care about it. And with music lovers they will not be afraid to pay for a good song

Of course it can be saved by bitcoin as long as bitcoin will give focus to music industry. There are surely a lot that bitcoin can do especially to music industry.

I think there is no connection with the music industry and I am not happy that we are used by the music industry because there is no connection and the relationship is absolutely the same with bitcoin technology

it might be used as a good thing, because the connection between music and bitcoin can limit piracy. and this is an action that might be possible. because as far as I know, I have a lot of music concept, so I think it can be connected so that it can be a positive impact of bitcoin.

I think the idea is nice and futuristic. With the high rise of piracy and idea theft the blockchain technology offers some sort of aid in protecting once ideas and identity and also content can also be sold

Look, this is a great idea!We urgently need to create a musical coin based on the blockchain and negotiate with DJs ,singers and musicians on this issue.This will bring both music and cryptocurrency to a new level.There's so much music in the world now!!!!And every day it creates a new one,its storage takes a lot of space and opportunities.You can also enter a system of payment and payments for all types of musical services based on the blockchain.

in my opinion it can happen. the music industry can use crypto currency as a digital payment tool when we want to buy or subscribe to digital music via a smartphone. or the music industry can accept crypto currency when they sell a song album. and the music industry can work together with one of the crypto currencies to benefit each other.

I think it could be realised. Altcoins fit for this goal much better then bitcoin. Implementation of this technology can raise the market to the sky.

The changelessness and "trustless" nature of the blockchain implies that it tends to be utilized in occasions where record-keeping and auditable information is critical, including information about who claims what resources, for example, music and motion pictures. As far as changing it goes, Im not sure but it will definitely cause a significant impact.

This is a rather off suggestion,and I doubt how useful the blockchain technology would be to the Music Industry..

It should be possible to store some data about an artist or transactions carried out as maybe payment for a show or a performance,but storing the actual recording on the blockchain technology sounds so unfamiliar and unnecessary..

If this should be adopted I'll love to see how it'll be put into effect

What is the difference between your approach and the usual streaming with Donat? The band Radiohead on streaming has earned its biggest fee for all albums. All from the donuts. Basically being able to buy music directly is a good idea. Through bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as well.

Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes again!!!That's genius!What should be done for this?)I'm in!)))But if without jokes,then this is a really great idea!In my head immediately drew a picture of how it can develop.It will open a whole ocean of possibilities!

Blockchain can be very transparent, but it is possible to continue piracy because people can create any new record with the copied track. It's like creating a new Altcoin based on any Altecin's Blockchain platform.

This answer. ;D

It is the new age where everything can be downloaded by now. Or should be for easy convenient keeping.
No more CD's that will get scratched and afterwards would not work anymore.

Anyway I do believe there is another way for bitcoin to save the music industry. It is not thru blockchain which you are proposing. It is the means to buy it. Bitcoin as internet money, music in internet. I do think that it connects already.
Faster, no credit cards and not too much information of the buyer to leak. Besides we are just buying music. Why the need to know who I am.

Is very possible ....but i personally think is a matter of time!...Let's keep on supporting the space...anything is possible!

I don't think that there is a connection between the music industry and btc but i don't know maybe this is possible if some experts think so. As for me, I don't see any great chances that btc will be able to save music industry

They're trying to tackle a similar problem, but streaming off the blockchain would be inferior to just downloading an mp3.  A specialized DAC/DAE could do this type of stuff and we may very well see it disrupt the music industry 10 years from now.  You pay the DAC and it gives you the music.  Eliminating the parasitic middlemen that have plagued the music industry for decades.

Well we know that everything is recorded on the blockchain so how this can be effective if its all about the copyrights for those songs, music that has been protected by law?

There's no connection with cryptocurrencies but OP is asking about the technology, blockchain if its possible to do what he's saying.

absolutely right, the person who answered no, did not seem to understand, and the argument given was also less convincing, moreover he hoped that music was not on the internet, even though nowadays everything is all internet, we don't have to bother going out just to find or buy music we want to listen to.

The blockchain is very useful for every platform, including the music world, but there are some things that must be considered.
1. copyright regulation
2. royality payments
3. technical royality calculation
4. capital in the future.

Storing Music in Blockchain is not possible because each block contains only 2 mb data and music needs 4+ mb datas to store. It can be that music industry can do transaction in cryptocurrency but they cannot store music in blockchain.

We have to see option on erc20 tokens if it is possible, it it got success then it will really give a very big boost to erc20 token platform.

Storing Music in Blockchain is not possible because each block contains only 2 mb data and music needs 4+ mb datas to store. It can be that music industry can do transaction in cryptocurrency but they cannot store music in blockchain.

We have to see option on erc20 tokens if it is possible, it it got success then it will really give a very big boost to erc20 token platform.

Bitcoin can be related to music, especially for digital music download payments. In this case bitcoin is positioned as a user who will save the music industry, because conventional transactions are outdated. Downloading music with digital payments makes the music industry get payments directly.

Bitcoin is indeed a financial industry but transactions can be used in all needs, depending on the user. If the music industry sells its work with bitcoin transactions the music certainly has high potential to be developed. Today many digital industries can be utilized and have advantages, so I think the music industry can run with bitcoin and later can help it.

The music industry doesn't need to save, it is developing very well now.
Don't think of bitcoin/blockchain is omnipotent. In fact, many industries that have developed well now do not necessarily need blockchains.

You're right with what you said but music wont be store on the blockchain because blockchain will only be use to monitor/calculate the number listener or download of music. However, I have seen alot of music project which were implemented on the ERC20 and I believe it work fine cause if not there wont have be more.

Definitely, if bitcoin can really help the financial situation of the world then music industry is inclusive

I don't think the music industry needs a crypto format. Putting music in a digital frame means letting it die. It's an interesting idea, but it's pointless for the music field. Such technologies are much more useful for other spheres of human activity - Economics, Finance. education, medicine, etc.

With blockchain, i am believe we can save music industry. Bitcoin creating more opportunity, if every music label accept bitcoin for payment, i am believe music industry will more attractive because we are living on technology world

Of course, by building trust and transparency between artists, supporters, fans, and industry service providers so that it will create a bitcoin ecosystem as a means of exchange in every activity that exists