How Blockchain Can Solve the Music Industry’s AI Problem (Guest Column)

variety.com:

Inder Phull When Napster emerged in 1999, the music industry experienced an existential crisis. The advent of peer-to-peer digital file-sharing devalued music and caused an industry-wide downturn, leaving traditional gatekeepers wondering what would come next.

The emergence of the music streaming ecosystem offered a practical solution – but not before labels and artists lost billions of dollars of revenue to digital theft.

With the emergence of AI, the technology’s potential impact on IP ownership and compensation has many concerned about history repeating itself.

The music industry has learned from the Napster era: It has taken measures to protect copyrights and intellectual property ultimately leading to the evolution of digital music platforms and streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.