Oddly enough I haven't seen any posts about this yet, figured I'd inform you guys, cause this could be big.
Choon is a 'music streaming service and digital payments ecosystem powered by the Ethereum blockchain designed to solve some of the music industry's most fundamental problems.'
It was announced by trance legend Gareth Emery a few days ago, and they're hoping to get started next year:
Emery, who in a post this morning on Facebook describes himself as a Bitcoin enthusiast since 2013, has spent the last four years ‘dabbling’ in various cryptocurrcies before deciding to enter the arena himself.
Choon, which will launch early next year, is designed to help emerging, young artists make a living by promising to return 80% of streaming revenues to them. It comes with its own payment token called NOTES, as well as a few interesting-sounding features like ‘Smart Record Contracts’ which are designed to replace much of the music industry’s antiquated procedures for contracting and licensing. Emery said:
“When it comes to getting paid fairly, artists get a worse deal today than ever. Contrary to popular belief, there is money there, but it’s going to the wrong people. We want to radically change the game; finally giving new and emerging artists a chance to get be fairly paid for their music, and making it far easier to create contracts for collaborations, management, samples and licensing.”
Emery goes on to say that whilst he is able to make a good living by touring, many are not.
“This isn’t about artists like me, who make a great living playing live, and
clearly have nothing to complain about. It’s for those who rely purely on music for their income, and who don’t have touring to fall back on. It’s brutal when I talk to young artists, who are getting tens of millions of streams yet still need to do a 9-5 job to put food on the table. It’s no surprise so many of them give up.”
Read the full announcement here.
Artists can apply for the beta phase here.
I'm honestly very excited as this would finally open a new door for starting artists.