Millennial music pirating darling Limewire sprang back into headlines this week after decades of dust and silence. The once foundational music piracy service, was buried in lawsuits and eventually out-scaled by legitimate streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify.
However, as we've seen, companies and IPs can undergo radical transformations and reimaginings in the web3 era. And so, next up is Limewire, who according to new management is fully pivoting into music NFTs. While there have been a host of web3 native music NFT platforms coming into the limelight, none of them have yet to reach a widespread adoption or traction. Could a former major player have the brand recognition needed to jump start the official beginnings of the web3 music revolution? It's only a matter of time until someone gets a critical mass of artists on board, sorts out the smart contracts and begins allowing artists and listeners to participate in the growth and profits of musical acts.
In their initial volley, Limewire is looking to launch with artists unreleased, live and bonus tracks. Effectively giving artists an easy route into NFTs, by only requiring them to test out the platform with their forgotten or cast aside tracks. If the traction gains momentum, you could imagine artists starting to launch new albums onto the service and finding out what the financial and fan reach rewards might be. Musicians, long unfairly squeezed for mere pennies per stream on Apple and Spotify, represent a key demographic to demonstrate the freeing powers of digital ownership. And abstract concept that needs its Robin Hood moment. If a struggling musician or group of musicians could come out and declare that they have become profitable off of their music NFTs, that could create a watershed moment similar to how struggling visual artists have found success in the initial phase of jpeg based NFTs.
Expanding into music, would also allow NFTs and web3 in general to prove that an "NFT" is really just a bit of coding, with the power to raise any sort of digital content. This isn't about the shoddily illustrated animals that have dominated early NFT branding. NFTs are simply like "html" or "http", they are a protocol, like web pages that can be applied in infinite ways. To say that you "don't like NFTs" is like saying you "don't like websites." Do you not like all websites? Do you not like the internet? NFTs, like webpages or the internet are not one thing. They are simply the underpinnings that allow for passage of digital ownership. I feel like once music NFTs rise into public awareness, the depth to which people understand the emerging technology will grow. This is simply the evolution of the internet and a new frontier of what is possible with digital behavior.
When you "buy" an NFT, you are not "buying an NFT." That's like saying you "bought a receipt" when you bought a piece of art or a book. The NFT is simply the record of the transaction. There is nothing inherently valuable in that. It's just the record of who paid what for what asset. The record of ownership, combined with the digital asset is what gives NFTs their power and value.
In the future with music NFTs, you could imagine it working like this. Say an unheard of artist released an album on a music NFT platform like Limewire. Fans would be able to buy a share of the album or an individual track. From here, fans would then be able to "stake" their album and generate passive income every time the album or tracks were streamed. The artist themselves would generate the highest percent of income every time the track was streamed. If the artist happened to blow up and get millions of streams, the early owners of the music NFT would see their investment rise. The initial NFTs would be more valuable based on the popularity that the artist gained. If the artist didn't blow up, there would still be proportionate profits based on the size of their fan community.
Imagine an already established artist like Kanye West dropped a music NFT. Let's say Donda 3 was dropped onto Limewire. It would be like any high profile NFT drop, and there would be a massive queue of people trying get get one of the limited edition NFTs, that would allow them to earn profits based on the crazy amount of streams they imagine Donda 3 will receive. With the staking of music NFTs, the longer you stake, the more you stand to gain. So if you consistently buy blue chip artists on their release, you will create a steady stream of income based on the number of streams they get. Currently, all of that action is going back to Apple Music and Spotify. The artists, unless they have separate deals directly with the streaming services, get mere fractions of pennies per stream. It can not support their careers. Web3 stands to use smart contracts to guarantee sizable profits go back to the creators of content. Whether they be visual, motion or music artists. Their name and contract is baked into the NFT, and every time someone interacts with or buys the NFT, the profits automatically go where they are deserved. No record labels. No middle managers stealing profits. It's all out in the open.
Record companies and streaming services could adapt to web3 and get in on the profits by creating their own native web3 music platforms. That way they would be able to offer distribution and a more fair deal to artists to stay involved in the process. Of course, artists like Kanye would be better served to create their own web3 music platforms, where they have the scale and power to recruit other acts, give them a fair deal, and get percentages of all of the action. Major athletes like Michael Jordan and LeBron James are already establishing their own web3 native brands, which will give them massive scale and influence in the space. All public creators need to be taking this seriously, as the earliest ones to get in will profit the most and dictate the ground rules of web3.
Limewire will be one of the first public tests of music NFTs. It will take a combination of major acts and independent artists to move the needle in this space. But due to the nature of smart contracts, a more profitable future is guaranteed to artists in web3. And the interesting addition is that early fans of artists, also stand to profit alongside the music they like. This is the nature of web3 and potential benefit of merely participating and engaging with the new era of digital culture.
