Music royalties management using blockchain

Abstract

Royalty payments in the music industry take a long time and lack transparency. Usually, the artists are the last to know anything regarding their royalty payments and in some cases, payments are not made to the correct entity. In this dissertation the main factors that make the royalties payment process such a difficult one are analysed. Also, how the use of Blockchain technologies can eliminate these problems, making it possible to obtain correct and transparent information about payments. To identify these problems and possible solutions, some meetings were conducted with a domain expert and articles related to the topic were analyzed. A prototype was developed according to the needs that were previously discussed with the domain specialist that demonstrate automated royalty payments, eliminating the waiting period that traditionally can take up to three years.

Royalty payments in the music industry take a long time and lack transparency. Usually, the artists are the last to know anything regarding their royalty payments and in some cases, payments are not made to the correct entity. In this dissertation the main factors that make the royalties payment process such a difficult one are analysed. Also, how the use of Blockchain technologies can eliminate these problems, making it possible to obtain correct and transparent information about payments. To identify these problems and possible solutions, some meetings were conducted with a domain expert and articles related to the topic were analyzed. A prototype was developed according to the needs that were previously discussed with the domain specialist that demonstrate automated royalty payments, eliminating the waiting period that traditionally can take up to three years.