The people in this call were/are(? part of a web3 record label. It was a project I knew of, in the periphery and my friend, who is a brilliant professional and incredible community builder was part of it. Because of her, and because many people spoke about how my point of view could be useful, due to my experience, I minted(bought) a founder’s pass. Maybe it could’ve been a fun do-over from my previous life at record labels, but less than four weeks after that initial sale one of the co-founders left, and the rest of the team was laid off. All of the uncertainty was meant to be addressed in the weekly call, which is usually a place to discuss ideas & business models, this is why these are always recorded with a bot. In this particular call, a new team member was introduced and he spoke of his vision, I disagreed with him, you can hear what happened in the last 15 mins of the call.

And now my thoughts:

Not even sure how to start this one, this is a familiar story for me. I’ve been in the room when this happens, I’ve been on the receiving end of this happening, and I’ve heard the stories of how this happened to someone else. Women in the music industry have a code, we talk to each other, we secretly say things like “take care of yourself,” or “make sure you’re well prepared for this meeting” and read each other’s emails to make sure we are clear enough, and have the right tone.

To be perfectly frank I’m not sure if men know all of this machination is going on. Women are fully aware that we enter the room having to prove ourselves, regardless of our titles or experience. Yet, through years of all of this nonsense, I have managed not to allow it to stop me. Could be delusion or insanity learned from my father who is the most resilient entrepreneur. Problem-solving is my core need and I will attempt to resolve anything way beyond where a normal person would give up. But I’m going to give myself space to dump every single thought that has gone through my mind here and we’ll see how I feel about it after I’m done.

I first remembered the last time something similar happened, it was a Zoom call during the pandemic with our CEO, where he tried to victimize himself by explaining he was discriminated against when he went to buy his BMW. I attempted to shut it down, but he was the CEO so I had to be careful, one other woman tried to say something but in the most gentle and polite way. It was horrible, the call ended awkwardly and three other people told me my days were counted. I tried taking my only recourse, but HR works for the CEO too so it was dead in the water before it started, and there was no recording.

Next, I remembered the one time my incredibly talented and patient coworker told me how the one boss we liked asked her not to be emotional about how our company was exposing ourselves to blatant copyright infringement. The company had been sued so many times, you’d think they would know better, but here we were, telling a MUSIC company to make sure they clear all of the use of music on an app. This boss agreed with us, and yet he wanted her to approach this topic delicately. I was incredulous and wanted to say something but she told me not to say anything, so we just ate our lunch and supported each other.

Lastly, I remembered the time I listened to the men in my company talk about how a woman was strategically pushed out for speaking up consistently. “Just stop talking, just be quiet” they would warn her as if that was the extent of what they could do for her. Being yelled at and humiliated is just par for the course, right? Because we ALL had an abusive boss, but he was especially bad with women. He terrorized women for needing to breastfeed after having children, booked meetings way past normal hours or ridiculously early, and worst of all spoke about women’s maternity leave plans as a hindrance in front of artists. But because there is no recording, he is still there, and because he’s GREAT for the bottom line, he will be there until he decides to retire.

The thing with all of these events, women forge forward on their own. We stand in glass cages watching this happening, watching other people watch it happen, and nobody feels they can do anything. Life continues, a new workweek starts and women keep trudging through. These little glimpses of being a woman in the music industry are one of the main motivators to me leaving the major label life, gasping for air. I am happy to have found a new home in web3, where the culture was considerate of people, where being a mom was a good thing, and where we want to rebuild structures in the music industry that serve artists and fans better.

All the messages I’ve received, especially from male allies, let me know I know that the culture we have here is very strong and that a good number of people will not stand for misogyny, homophobia, racism, transphobia, ableism, and any other phobias/isms. This is why, I’m glad the recording got out there because most of us don’t want to let all of that nonsense over here. With the recording, we can hold those responsible for horrible behavior accountable, we can take this as an opportunity to finally do it right. I believe strongly in this community, and I know we can find a path forward and build a more equitable space. I hope we can all stand together in this, divorce our industry from this behavior for good, and demand better, we all deserve it.

When I joined the music industry, my goal was to figure out an exit from rampant piracy. At my core I felt that there was something I could do to save the value of music, and musicians’ livelihoods. Like many, I thought streaming might be the answer, sadly I was wrong. I still believe technology will get us to the other side. It could just be a sunk cost bias, on my part, after a career dedicated to the idea that music is worth something.

On that note I’d like to share a few models as to how an artist can create multiple collectible products out of one song, while keeping with the scarcity that is necessary to sustain meaningful relationships with collectors.

Premium Music (1/1)

https://beta.catalog.works/esty/holy-ghost-

This one is easy, much like the golden egg we’ve already come to know. This Premium 1/1 version of the song (or mixtape/album) can unique, harbor one or many perks to make its purchase meaningful for a collector of rare pieces.

Perks that could be offered as once-in-a-lifetime experiences are: production access/credit, lifetime tickets to see artist perform, a private live performance commitment.

The premium 1/1 could also just be a “musician’s version” of a track, much like Taylor Swift’s 10 min version of “All Too Well”

Editions

Probably the most popular of the collectible options out there and much like traditional radio edits, these are just your standard limited run collectibles, or record pressings. Here are two ways of building scarcity, sometimes both can be used simultaneously: editions & time.

It is important to stick to this limited one time run, and to ensure proper metadata is linked to this particular collectible. So that if any derivative works are created in the future, it is important that the original track is referred back to. This only furthers the story of it and increases it’s value.

Videos

I’m actually bunching many different formats in here. A music video collectible is anything that would traditionally be uploaded to something like a Youtube Channel. They could be sold as either editions or 1/1s. As far as content goes, these collectibles could be:

• Music Videos

• Karaoke Lyric Videos

• Visualizer Videos

• Behind The Scenes Looks

• Acoustic Video Performances

Milestones

If the artist is also releasing the music through traditional means, why not celebrate milestones reached with their collectors? Xcelencia actually has already done this, by dropping a celebratory mint of the 1st Million streams of the track “Tabú.”

What is great about these types of collectibles, is that there is a potential to automate the generation of these and further the relationship with collectors. Celebrating both traditional milestones and web3 milestones: millions of streams/views, sell outs of mints, secondary sale records.

https://opensea.io/collection/tabumillion

Lyrics

https://twitter.com/steph_guerrero/status/1585781219798659072?s=20&t=qiYpl8tJXPl1y76DvxK9SQ

An often underrated part of a track, still they are the strongest connection between fans and music. They turn into tattoos, wedding vows, status posts or even captions to memories that are significant to them. This is why I think they could be such a large source of collectibles.

In a perfect world an artist could place the entirety of their lyrics on an interface that lets fans select their favorite part. Here they could set limits, either only one edition could minted per phrase, or a limited number of editions. What happens after the lyrics are selected is up to the artist, either the fan can link it to a background image of their choice or the artist could select a background image. Then fans could hold their favorite lyrics on their wallet with that little segment of their song.

Stems

The best example of this is probably what Arpeggi Labs is building. Where an musician can actually sell the stems of their track. The only caveat here are the conditions as to what bundle of rights is being sold along with the stems, as generally these are given to people that want to produce remixes. It is important that this is communicated clearly when establishing the parameters of the collectible.

There you have it, one song can be the source of many different connection points with your fans. Creating collectibles for each experience will enrich the relationship an artist can have with fans. It is important to make this disclaimer: while a lot of these are tied to copyright source, artists must be clear if there are any rights included in the purchase of the collectible, as it could get messy if these extend beyond personal use.

I consumed music in a bubble at that point, literally pouring over Youtube or Spotify, and telling my friends about my discoveries. All of us loved sharing back and forth, the bulk of my college friends having moved away after college, we connected through shared playlists. I was not prepared for what would happen when I entered that show.

As I entered I realized that the fandom for the band was on average 15 years younger than me. All the girls around me asked how I managed to score a ticket so late, and how I got a wristband to drink. It was adorable to watch the look on their faces when they realized how much older I was, and how I discovered the band. They told me so much about them, how they got together, the names of all the members, what was the inspiration behind all the songs. Last, but most importantly, they spoke about how they had used one of their father’s VLAN to make sure they would all be able to buy tickets, beating out scalpers and securing tickets to the show. I was in awe of all of them, how much they knew and how determined they were.

There are many theories as to what will bring mass adoption of web3, will it be easy onramps? Or do we need a big corporation to come onboard? I believe it’ll be fandoms, and not one from an already established artist, but an emerging artist (or artists). Most successful artists attribute their success to a dedicated fandom that grew with them. The fandom that can tap parent resources to access a VLAN to buy highly desired tickets, will also set up their crypto wallets, sign up for allowlists, whitelists and show all of their friends how to do it. The value that groups like this bring is incredible, and their parents are funding their determined efforts and adding to their purchasing power.

A lot of the credit is given to big corporations developing technology for the status of the music industry today, but none of the progress, achieved so far, would have happened without fandoms. They have built careers, platforms, taken down political campaign efforts, created trends, crashed websites. Fandoms are responsible for the rise of social media platforms to the top of download lists, and will flock wherever they find their favorite artists. A determined group of young fans is more effective in pushing change than anything else in the world. They are also incredible recruiters, not only encouraging their friends, but creating explainers or walking them step-by-step through convoluted process to help their artists climb the charts, win awards, succeed.

The web3 community is incredibly welcoming. At the same time we seek to find that “cross-over” success from one of our own, looking for validation. Focusing on pooling resources around one or few artists is a mistake. The fans has often decided which artists and singles are more successful, we need to allow them to do the same with the web3 roster. This is only achievable if we give them room to discover them, so music must be available through traditional means, and peeks behind the curtain of NFTs available through social media.

In web3 we often push for the idea of 100 or 1000 true fans, AND still beg for easier onramps. Wouldn’t a true fan jump through all of the hurdles to acquire access to their artists? We are looking for dedicated fans, dedication is not shown through simple one-click experiences. Perhaps we are doing a disservice to fandoms by trying to focus only on simplifying the process, what we need to do a better job of is trying to connect with them.

One, not so fun example that happens often is: one of the rights owners on a song does not get back to a third party interested in sync licensing a track, the deal falls apart and the revenue goes to another track. This undoubtedly results in many frustrations from the other rights holders who were perhaps looking for revenue and exposure from that particular placement. We are all also familiar with the length of time it takes for songwriters, producers and sometimes artists to get paid due to bad metadata.

There are many ways in which web3 can address each of these layers, let’s take a look at the ways in which I consider each one should be handled:

1) Attribution

This should be immutable and permanent (albeit with a few exceptions) and should allow collectors or anyone looking at the blockchain to look at who are the original creators of a song. It’s also a great place to give recognition to participants of a work that have perhaps participated in a work-for-hire model. These attribution credits also hold additional value, separate from holding licensing control and financial gain. They can be used to gain access to separate professional organizations that require a minimum number of credits. They can also be used to be considered and win awards.

These should not be part of any NFT package in my view, awards and accreditations that are meant for artist creators, should remain with them. However, how creators are attributed can be complicated. Artist names sometimes change, and using wallets as identifiers can be problematic if these wallets are ever compromised. Solutions for this should be made in consideration of these potential problems.

2) Control of Use

It is understood in the music industry that if you hold a copyright credit you have the right to perform the track as you wish, however this is not always the case. Owning a control of use of a copyright composition means that you can control how/when a song is performed, how copies are made, and derivative works made from that track. For recordings, owning the copyright’s control of use means controlling how copies are made and derivative works, which includes syncs to video or video games. Here is where artists are usually getting caught chasing down their fellow copyright holders in order to secure a licensing deal. This is because the music is the only art form that allows fractionalized licensing. If one songwriter has decided to go on a one month retreat at sweat lodge with no access to the outside world, and has not assigned a third party to authorize licensing the track, the deal is lost.

In web3 control can be attributed to one of the parties that owns the copyright via tokenization. Especially placing certain criteria on the control token holder so that all parties are happily involved. This control can also be granted in equal pieces with the incentives given to token holders bringing in deals.

Another use for web3 is to generate licensing NFTs, allowing holders of the NFT to use the track for the use allowed by the token. In this manner, copyright control holders can agree to predetermined terms and pricing for the use of the track. This also allows music supervisors or potential users of the track to buy into predetermined deals.

3) Financial Splits

It’s easy to say that control of use and financial splits are the same, but this is not always the case. Particularly if artists want to start giving collectors access to their royalty income. This financial layer is also the most complicated, because each lane can also be fragmented: sync, derivative, streaming, sales. It is often the case that artists donate their income from songs to charity, this is not always all of the income from the track but instead just streaming/sales income. In these cases sync or derivative works income is sometimes still given back to the artist.

What most excites me about this final layer, is just bringing all of royalty collection on-chain. Because music often has additional parties to just musician & songwriters, there are also PROs/MROs, Labels, Publishers, Managers, even Lawyers at times. Depending on who is collecting the royalties on behalf of the artists, there are little and very limited tools for creators to audit this royalty collections. When royalty collection is brought on-chain, collection parties will have to trim the fat and there will be no need for audits.

Lastly, NFTs that include royalty income, which is not always going to be the case, should have this layer bundled in via liquid splits. Artists can also sell fractions of each different lanes of monetization or all of them bundled together for a premium price. These seem like fun innovations, but I’d like to give the caveat that selling royalty income could be considered a security. Artists, proceed with caution when experimenting using these models.

The Icing

My hope is that in the future that all three of these layers can be tied to a creation and allowed to operate separately in web3. The chaos that is music copyright will probably continue but I hope that the future will allow for artists to control how their music is consumed and be remunerated in a timely fashion. The most exciting part is that musicians and artists will be able to play with different models that can even allow fans to take part in different layers at different times.

I’m at an industry mixer, the sort of thing that drains me quicker than I’d like to admit, but I’m used to pushing through. This time, though I’m full of energy, I hear Kasbeel’s reach voice in my mind “mmm Yo Soy Dios” over and over. It is infectious, it gives me confidence, it’s also a miraculous achievement in music. The most magical creations are usually born out of pain, the rose that grew from concrete, Tupac sang. There is no better description for Kasbeel. Buenaventura, is not what people think of when they think of music from Colombia. It’s usually Reggaeton from Medellín, a city that bloomed beautiful art out a tainted past.

Kasbeel defies so many odds, with older tech hardware she began recording songs using free YouTube beats and uploading them to Facebook. Her refreshing perspective and clever songwriting quickly resonated with young audiences. All kinds of derivative works started sprouting all over Tiktok & Instagram, extending her message exponentially. The moving image of Kasbeel, sitting in her room and speaking as the voice of the unheard even made it to the Twitter accounts of famed politicians. It was clear that her magnetism was undeniable, and the internet intensified the message.

Enter the summer of web3 bloom, her business partner: Colombo, a Water and Music DAO member was taking a deep dive into the transforming power of this new iteration of the internet. “Going through the traditional route of - join the discord - I got in touch with the team @ Glass Protocol. It was early stage for them and super early for us. I hit them up though DM and showed them “Yo Soy Dios” and they flipped!” Fueled by the support of the team at Glass, Kasbeel minted her music video as one of the first mints on the protocol, a piece that sold on the same day that was listed. This is where her story begins to take off in a different direction.

Kasbeel’s team took part of the earnings of her first sale to reinvest in her live show. The costs of paying for rehearsals, transport and other needs were covered so that by the end of 2021 bookings began rolling in. Kasbeel played shows during the holiday season in Cali, Colombia. The other part of the proceeds was used to go back into the studio to record demos for future creations, this is where her second web3 single, “Reflejo,” was born.

Dayo, founder from Glass ushered Kasbeel into other curated platforms in the web3 space. Starting off in 2022 with a Catalog profile, Kasbeel and her production team got to work in order to finish the aforementioned track. All the while, “Yo Soy Dios,” a canonical version was listed and sold on Catalog, allowing her team to catch another wave of growth, finishing production on the track and diving into the production for a music video in Bogotá. This video is now available as part of an innovative drop on Zora, which is redefining what provenance means in web3 as it reflects back to the traditional music industry.

Kasbeel’s ability to innovate with rudimentary tools does not stop with her, she is surrounded by a team who also works in continuously inventive ways. Finding solutions to limitations that web3 has yet to address, while echoing her determinate passion that cascades throughout her art. She is the story of why I am convinced the future is in web3, because everyone involved in her creative world is working towards and around her art. Demanding more from herself echoed by a team that continuously demands more from themselves and the tools available at their disposal. She, like her team, is innovation, not because they think they are, because they exist in it.

I come from a world where NFTs are usually viewed as an interesting, but nebulous, emergent technology. Where phrases like “new revenue stream” and “optimized monetization of assets” are always thrown around once the acronym NFT enters a conversation. Because, after years in the music industry, it is hard to reprogram the voices that have been wired to focus on charts, consumption numbers, market share, gaining audience, building mass appeal, but mostly revenue.

Show me the Money! Community!

It’s hard to separate web3 and NFTs from the gold rush narrative. Headlines in the mainstream press are constantly filled with seven figure numbers, instant sell outs, and the promise of web3 clout and massive revenue for very little effort. This is why my meetings start with one question "Are you open to collect?” followed by 20 minutes of unlearning and education. The goal is to reframe the focus from what this means from an income perspective, and instead focus on what this means for the future of their careers & their community. How suddenly, artists who are developing can make a living from their music, supporters can now also benefit and be rewarded for their efforts, but most of all, how the art is now at the center of the structure and the artist can dictate terms that have never been available before.

When I start my one-on-one meetings I do something very specific but intentional. There is no explanations of structures, smart contract models, or definitions of terms. My first question is about commitment levels. Depending on the artist, it’s a matter of time and sometimes money. I begin here because I don’t want continue the pattern of musicians being led into new technology blindly. Being onboarded with the idea that X platform will be the most important in their career and if they connect with JUST the right people, treasure will come to them. There is a lot of unlearning to be done, and understanding that as new structures are built, tradicional advances paid to artists are actually a detriment, not a bonus of this new world. In web3 the community built around the artist, is the key to long term success. The established community usually welcomes people with open arms, but rewards only those who roll their sleeves up and contribute.

Once expectations are established, and sometimes this takes more than one meeting. I go into my presentation of the basics, which I like to take my time with and explain the concepts thoroughly. I also review some case studies, and look at the long term impact of those drops, because it’s important for artists to see how a secondary market can be the ultimate judge of their success. Selling out a project, is not the end of the story, instead the story is constantly being tracked and built on the blockchain.