How The first STEEMIT music service could revolutionize the Industry
Fist of all. I'm such a newb that I'm still trying to understand how to withdraw my steem. And I apologize for my ignorance for one, in how I will speak about this idea, not understanding the cryptocurrency terms and secondly, if this is already a well-discussed idea.
First: Some problems Steem could possibly solve in the starving music industry
I won't Suger coat it and act like it's okay that all music is free. Most of us musicians have been shamed for getting upset that our very expensive, time intensive works are basically completely free now. I also will acknowledge that in many ways, it's much better than the old way... but it's bad out there.
Maybe you've seen some of these multi-platinum stars spilling the beans on their little bitty tiny checks.
Problem #1 crypto-currency to solve: Contributing Artist
Yay!! The music industry is democratized. The big fish are now as poor as the little fish were! We celebrate that everyone has a chance now but here is the truth of the matter. The music industry is a food chain. All the way down to the banjo player on a local album, we were in some way compensated by the mere existence and actually touring, album sales of the ultra rich rock star. So the big stadium rock stars allowed for stadium shows, the openers at that stadium show became bigger stars, they need smaller theater shows, their openers for the smaller theater shows can now fill a club. Way too simplified but you get the point. Music sales have the same food chain type lineage with radio and so on. Some of it is harder to trace, but it's very true. We all perish when the ultra arena rock stars parish.
Music Declining sales all time low
But, take a guy like me. I'm a producer of my own music. I usually do solo shows and though this everything-is-free has ruined any chance of retirement for me, I can still make it, just on much less than before. Think of the guys under me. The mix engineers have reduced their prices by %80 and %90. I can get a cello player for the price of a Starbucks binge.
So as it trickles down, it is beyond impossible for the contributor artist. Because I, as the songwriter, still get the royalties, and most of the time I get all of the royalties. That wasn't so bad, because royalties were biger, so the contributing artist could actually have a profession as a banjo player.
The bigger problem is companies, in the majority, were responsible for paying out all the smaller fish. Now it's just crazy desperate artist like me the royalties come straight to. No middle man. So many contributing artists are getting screwed hard.
Steem to the rescue
So my understanding is that when you lock in a transaction, there can be verified data trails/links and whoever is the payees in the data trail are automatically paid. Like I said.. broad ideas, I have no idea how it works. If that idea is true. Then me, the songwriter, the banjo player and the producer have an agreement. We encode a music file with that agreement. When it is bought or UPVOTED (I'll get into that later) the steem is directly routed to the agreement partners in that song.
Now, everyone's getting paid with no questions, and it's a better world because contributing artist is getting the respect they deserve.
Problem #2 crypto-currency to solve: Curation
I'm loving the physiological genius behind steemit. At first, I was just UPVOTING all kinds of crap, like I do on facebook, to be nice. Then I saw that when I upvoted with a little steem power.. that I have power in deciding what is good and bad. the humanity in me screams, don't STEEM THE JUICY ASS picture, because it's just a picture, and they are not helping our community. They didn't even write anything about the juicy ass. It naturally makes some more discriminate.
A big problem now in music is curation. We all have mp3's and videos flying at us web-drunk distracted guilty Americans (guilty because we have raped our own artist for our greed) we're like-happy. We like stuff cause so they'll like ours, we like it cause their friends on facebook, we like it just cause the guy is cute, but many don't like the stuff they REALLY LIKE as often as you'd think.. because it's a shit storm out there on the net man. STEEMIFY would put value back in our opinions of music and think our world should be full of. Value is really what is missing from the music industry. We as humans don't value things that are free. We just don't. And STEEMIFY would be a new kind of valuing, for a new era.
A voting system like Steam it where the curators are rewarded both with a better, more curated platform and with Steem Power. When this Steemit idea is broken into by genre, then each genre could have some very well selected songs that are now being lost in the mass emailing, because great musicians are not always great self-promoters, and right now that's the only option. All other voting systems are not working too well.
Problem #3 crypto-currency to solve: Publishing, Licensing and Sync
Now this is a Big Harry idea of the future. But let us start with how the licensing industry is also dying. When music went free, and don't kid yourself, it's free. Some of us rested on the fact that we can still make some larger bucks in sync and licensing (TV & FILM placement) and the checks were pretty nice still during the music drop. Now that is dying also. Because, there are so many musicians scrambling from their own markets, such as Live or radio or sales and completely saturating this market as well. Just imagine that you are watching your favorite blockbuster TV show and this great song comes on for a couple of minutes. now subconsciously you might think that musician just scored. But in reality, he probably got $200 - $1200 for placement and a few bucks now and then. Even though the song cost maybe twice as much to record and produce.
The final note on that. is that there also is a real problem with reporting. These shows, radio, super-markets and so forth have to report what they use accurately. How many times do you think Ezra Vancil gets spelled Ecrsx Vanpil .. a lot more than you think. I wonder how much I loose on that, plus the guardians BMI and ASCAP are known for not always being super thorough with us little guys.
The big harry idea is that the entertainment world is curated and run on STEEM. TV and film are also upvoted. Ratings ARE the upvotes. Reviews are the comments. The exchange is encrypted with the music in the TV show and once again, no question everyone gets compensated each view, each vote.. needs some help, but a broad idea.
Problem #4 crypto-currency to solve: Music can still be free
Just like STEEM, were not paying for this great content, but people are bing paid. The same idea could work great for a music platform based solely on Steemit. And if you suck.. then you sink to the bottom. GOOD! People would trust their curated music more, they would find more great artist, and the artist could make REAL money and f&ck Spotify and a middle man. Which leads to #5
Problem #5 crypto-currency to solve: Fu$k the middle greedy corporate F$%ks
So another fallacy loudly proclaimed is that there are no gatekeepers anymore. No middlemen. Musicians can go directly to fans. That is BS to the extreme. The Gatekeepers are fewer than ever, more powerful and hurting artist into impossible to disagree with terms because there is billions behind pushes in a certain direction model. It is go with it or just die in the vast emptiness of the web.
Do you think any artist that has spent thousands and parts of his life would sell a track for 0.0009? or 0.000009? or 0.0000? No that's the middle man's idea. Before iTunes, we sold CDs for a fair amount of $10-$15. That's a couple cups of coffee. Itunes forced all into an entire album, no matter how many songs it was; 9.99. Now Amazon is pushing it down to 5.99 and looks like their going for $2.99 as a global hunger attack on musicians.
STEEM MUSIC SOLUTION: Truly no middle man. The world is the middle man. Sure some would play the sytem.. greedy billionaires would try and figure out a way to sell the top spots, which they still do. It's called pay-for-playlist.
Like I said, I'm very new to this space.. but I think the answer is here in STEEMIT or something like it, to really achieve that democracy of the artist in a way that is sustainable and less f*ck-with-able by the greedy artist-abusers like spotify and amazon.
Problem #6 crypto-currency to solve: Selling music live
You are not going to believe this.. well maybe you will ;). But it is so hard to sell digital music live. People want to buy something at concerts and they do. But not music. Because CD's are now table coasters, we have no way to sell music LIVE in the way it needs to be sold, which is instantly consumable. You might have seen CODE cards where they can put in a code in their... in their WHAT? In their computer. Not their phone. It's way to cumbersome. A Few small league apps allow this. But are you going to ask your audience to change their catalog to your new Bandcamp app? will they have to go and listen to your album on your suggested app? Will we have a Genius Desk at our concerts for all the technical problems that even many of my fans have in downloading and then uploading the song I sold on Bandcamp to their phone? which is where they listen now anyway. I don't even know how to redeem a Bandcamp code on a phone.. and I deal in this every day. If I'm given a Bandcamp or CDBABY code for an album, or buy one, I don't usually download it. I'm in a different world when I get home. That album is long gone... no time for that brotha! hope I stumble on your music on youtube someday.
I envision a way not only to sell music but encrypt in the currency the concert tickets with the FREE song they get with the ticket. Which is now chained in, their song is sent to, their not yet designed, STEEMIT music app, which is where everyone listens to music duh!
You may say, well, we can just look up the album on youtube on the way home. Ya, but, part of the leverage this would give, would be to once again sell music that is not widely released. Make the new album, something NEW, Exclusive... yet still packaged in a way to leave the concert with it.
concert screen.. put some steem streem hearts on there
Further Concert Ideas:
Patrons LIVE
If at the concert a girl is deeply moved by your smooth moves on stage, instead of throwing her panties, she can send you some steem power through her STEEMIFY app, right there next to the song that just popped up. It pops up like hearts on the digital video screen behind the artist. Everyone wants those little steem hearts to keep flowing and so the artist finds patrons based on how he moves the audience.
STEEMIFY all that iphone footage... more ching for the band and curators*
The video at concerts is cool and all. But once again. These are things musicians used to feed their families with. Videos were actually exciting, they could sell seats, pre-sale albums and best of all DVD's and paid live video feeds.
Now, what if when Music fan one uploads her new video stream of the concert, it is in the blockchain, encrypted with the artist and the whole STEEMIT process kicks in for the artist to get compensated if it rocks the vote. AND the wonderful music fan for curating it.
Well, it's a broad, cryptocurrency ignorant idea. Maybe someone that knows more than me can fine tune this and find some real solutions. I'm going to go cash this $10 check I just got from Spotify, I need some ramen noodles for my kids tonight.
ezra image
I'm Ezra Vancil Musician and artist from Texas.. Folow me
RESTEEM, UPVOTE if you like the idea.. and most of all... tell me your thoughts. Help me clarify the idea.
