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The music sector, a multi-billion-dollar industry, has witnessed swift expansion in digital streaming via platforms such as Spotify.

Nonetheless, recent reports indicate that streaming services frequently neglect the interests of musicians, resulting in artists receiving minimal remuneration for their work.

Source: Pandora Cloudcover

Current data reveals that artists earn mere cents per stream on services like Apple Music and Spotify.

A Musician Confronting the Conventional Music Industry

Italian singer-songwriter and actress Violetta Zironi has faced the challenges posed by streaming platforms directly.

Zironi informed Cryptonews that the music industry today is suffering from hyperinflation due to platforms like Spotify.

“These platforms have commoditized and devalued music to nearly nothing, creating monopolies that dominate artists,” she stated.

The difficulties associated with streaming services prompted Zironi to reevaluate her music career entirely.

“I found myself at a crossroads in my career after eight years in the traditional music sector and was contemplating stepping away from music,” Zironi explained. “During the pandemic, conventional streaming platforms weren’t fulfilling my artistic or community-building aspirations, and live performances were not an option.”

Motivated by her mother, Zironi began investigating non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a substitute for traditional streaming.

NFTs have gained traction among musicians for enabling them to earn higher royalties while maintaining control over their data and musical rights.

“When my mother introduced NFTs and peer-to-peer art collections, something clicked,” Zironi recounted. “I abandoned traditional avenues to focus exclusively on this space, and I haven’t looked back.”

Bitcoin Ordinals and Emerging Opportunities for Musicians

For almost three years, Zironi has been distributing her music on the blockchain, with the emergence of Bitcoin music inscriptions through Ordinals offering even greater opportunities.

“This guarantees my work is eternally preserved on the most secure, decentralized ledger, linked to Bitcoin’s permanence,” Zironi noted.

Bitcoin’s blockchain has not only safeguarded Zironi’s music but has also created new revenue avenues.

Recently, Zironi auctioned her latest track, “n0 0rdinary kind,” for 1 Bitcoin (BTC), marking it as the 34th largest inscription on Bitcoin.

1 song… 1 BTC
When it happened earlier I didn’t quite realize right away what that really meant
Despite knowing every inch of relentless work I put in for 3 years to get to this moment, it still didn’t feel real until…
I sat down at my childhood piano and, fighting the… pic.twitter.com/rhYD56v83L

— Violetta Zironi (@ZironiVioletta) October 3, 2024

With the advancement of Bitcoin Ordinals, an increasing number of musicians are inscribing their music on Bitcoin’s blockchain.

Former music producer Jim Crane observed that blockchain technology is becoming more prevalent for allowing artists to regain control over their creative output and revenue sources.

“Blockchain provides transparent tracking of how music is utilized and monetized, which fosters trust between artists and consumers,” Crane stated.

Inscribing Music On-Chain

According to Crane, Bitcoin music inscriptions present considerable advantages, including immutable attribution and ownership.

“The blockchain offers a permanent and tamper-proof record of who created, collaborated, or contributed in any way to a piece of music, ensuring that artists receive appropriate credit and can prove ownership unequivocally,” he elaborated.

In 2023, Crane developed a protocol named “Audionals” to facilitate music inscription on Bitcoin and reduce intermediaries in the industry.

The audionals are coming…
Audionals are a #Bitcoin #ordinals standard for inscribing and recursively accessing and sequencing on-chain audio files.
The web3 music revolution begins here! pic.twitter.com/m6C5TgVJCK

— Jim.btc (@jimdotbtc) June 25, 2023

This protocol enables the recursive use of inscribed audio on-chain, akin to a digital audio workstation but within a decentralized framework.

“This protocol allows for the recursive use of inscribed audio on-chain, similar to how a traditional digital audio workstation (DAW) operates, but within a decentralized environment,” Crane added.

Addressing Block Space Limitations

Despite the benefits of Bitcoin music inscriptions, challenges persist, particularly regarding limited block space.

Shailee Adinolfi, Business Development Lead for Leather, informed Cryptonews that Ordinal inscriptions involve embedding metadata onto a satoshi (the smallest unit of Bitcoin), with each satoshi capable of holding up to 4MB of data.

“This could create significant demand when multiple artists are aiming to launch songs, albums, or collections,” Adinolfi stated.

Zironi mentioned that she faced block space limitations when trying to inscribe a complete song with visual artwork.

“Block space on Bitcoin is restricted to 4MB, and high-quality inscriptions are expensive, so I worked within 600KB to make it feasible,” she explained. “However, this limitation turned out to be a blessing in disguise: for the first time, I could present an authentic, unrefined vocal and guitar performance without industry pressure to overproduce.”

Adinolfi added that recursive inscriptions, introduced after Ordinals, allow developers to extract data from existing files, conserving block space instead of uploading new features with each inscription.

“The solution for musicians may arise from Bitcoin scaling to layer-2 (L2) solutions, enabling artists to create on-chain with lower fees,” she noted.

Crane further clarified how Audionals addresses block space limitations by inscribing small text files with instructions for recreating music on-chain, significantly enhancing efficiency in terms of block space and costs.

Audional recursive songs, played directly from the Bitcoin Blockchain look and sound great on mobile!
Have a look/listen on your phone:https://t.co/i6GAxJcZTC pic.twitter.com/Wr0y2cxuI1

— @audionals (@audionals) September 5, 2024

“The first Audional Song, ‘Truth,’ utilizes studio-quality audio samples and represents the audio equivalent of a 70MB WAV recording,” he stated. “By creating it recursively and reusing the same samples, we can significantly reduce the information size required to play the song – without any compression or reprocessing of the audio.”

Crane noted that the Audional version of “Truth” initially required about 100KB with the first sequencer version, but through further optimization, he reduced it to 30KB by serializing the inscribed data.

“Currently, I have further minimized the total size of a 12-minute song file created with the Audional Sequencer to approximately 3KB,” he stated. “This has lowered the on-chain studio master cost from thousands of dollars to just a few dollars.”

Bitcoin’s Role in the Future of Digital Music

Although musical inscriptions on Bitcoin are still a nascent concept, Zironi is optimistic that this model will gain momentum.

“The demand for a decentralized system that caters to musicians and music lovers is substantial,” she remarked. “Over the past year, I’ve inscribed four additional songs on Bitcoin, and people are already expressing interest in collecting them.”

Crane envisions that Audionals will play a role in fostering a decentralized music ecosystem, making blockchain music creation more accessible to artists from diverse backgrounds and skill levels.

However, he emphasized that the industry still needs to establish standards to ensure interoperability and wider adoption.

“We still need the standardization of protocols,” he commented. “This involves creating common standards for music on the blockchain to guarantee interoperability and broad acceptance.”

The post Musicians Explain How the Bitcoin Blockchain Can Fix the Music Industry appeared first on Cryptonews.