Decentralization Enters the Music Industry, Netra Introduces NFT Music Royalty Sharing Platform

Decentralization is now not only spreading in the financial sector, but also extending to the music industry. The decentralized concept of Web 3.0 led to the emergence of various Web 3.0 projects, including Netra, a royalty-sharing music NFT platform (royalty sharing) which utilizes blockchain technology and is claimed to be the first in Asia.

Blockchain-based, Netra's web3 service allows local Indonesian and international musicians to offer ownership and royalty rights to their musical works in the form of NFT digital assets to their fans. This technology It is hoped that it will bring about more equitable prosperity on the music industry's core producers, namely musicians.

Netra allows musicians to earn alternative income from creative activities which basically reduces or eliminates the work portion (and profit sharing portion) by intermediaries such as distributors, and even labels. In addition to musicians, music lovers are also given the opportunity to contribute as investors who have ownership and can get royalties from streaming.

According to the official release, Netra CEO Setiawan Winarto explained, Netra's main vision is to become a platform and as a partner for musicians to enter the world of Web3, Blockchain and Metaverse. In addition, Netra also has a mission to give fans the opportunity to have a legacy immortality of the musicians that could not happen without blockchain technology.

Simply put, when we buy a CD/album, we only buy a copy of the song. We do not hold ownership or ownership any. Netra wants to change this.

Now music lovers can buy NFT of their favorite songs, as well as own part of the intellectual property of the song itself. Having NFT Netra means owning a song by your favorite artist and earning royalties every time the song is played.

Now, Netra has been officially introduced and is preparing to open access whitelist to be able to buy their NFT. His party has prepared at least 4 artists, including Dewa Budjana, Indra Lesmana, Andra Ramadhan, and Lalahuta who will be distributed and entered the Netra platform. Every song distributed by Netra will be split in royalties.

The first NFT will be released on March 9 to commemorate National Music Day. Dewa Budjana's work becomes the debut of NFT music in Netra. In a press conference, Netra briefly explained the calculation of royalties on his platform. The 50% royalty will be owned by the artist aka Dewa Budjana himself and the other 50% will be split up to be distributed to those who are interested.

Royalty ownership over streaming this song will be marked by a token in the form of NFT which is divided into 3 tier, namely Gold (0,02% royalty on streaming), platinum (0,05%). and Legend (can get 0.3% as well as exclusive access from events held by musicians).

For the royalty calculation itself, distribution will be made every 6 months to wallets that have been connected to Netra, which is also a marker of NFT ownership, because all of them are connected to the same wallet address. While the calculation of royalties streaming following the mechanism that is on the respective platform where the song is played.

On the other hand, the songs distributed by Netra still have to get a high number of plays if the fans holder The NFT wants to get royalties. This can encourage the holder to participate in promoting the song to be heard a lot. Some of the streaming platforms involved in music distribution and playback are recorded including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and others.

Netra COO Bryan Blanc added, "Blockchain technology innovation in the music world is limitless and Netra has many plans for the future of the music industry through blockchain, from decentralized music to the world of music metaverse. However, Netra's first step is to focus on decentralizing the music industry to become fair, transparent and enduring."

Transparency in blockchain technology

One of the problems identified in the music world is related to transparency. Musicians from all over the world have long admitted that it is difficult to live on music because of the existence of big players who act as intermediaries but lack clarity and transparency about the distribution of royalties.

By applying the principle of decentralization, the profits earned through music streaming will be directly transferred to musicians and can be claimed by NFT Netra owners without any third party intervention. And by utilizing blockchain technology, the security and authenticity of every transaction is guaranteed and transparent.

The presence of blockchain is considered to be a new standard in transparency in the music world. Blockchain enables unprecedented data transparency. With the characteristics of decentralization and trustless, all transaction history that occurs in the blockchain can be accessed by anyone, but at the same time no one can manipulate it.

Related smart contracts, Netra uses Matic which runs on the Polygon blockchain. This is considered to be able to suppress cost for gas fees because in Polygon gas fees will not be as expensive as in ETH layer 1. Netra also mentioned that later this NFT will be able to be traded on secondary market open sea.

Goals and future plans

Setiawan said that currently his party is still focused on being able to scale-up as soon as possible and as many artists and users as possible. Seeing the very wide reach of blockchain technology, Netra targets not only musicians or music lovers in Indonesia who join the platform, but also Asia and globally. Just like music that can be enjoyed from various parts of the world, it is hoped that this technology can also reach a wider market.

In the global arena, Kings of Leon officially released the album in NFT form on the blockchain-based music platform, Yellow Heart. In addition, there is also Mike Shinoda, vocalist of Linkin Park who auctioned the NFT version of the song through Zora. In the Indonesian music industry, there is the band Souljah which uses NFT to market the artwork for a song entitled “Keep On Moving” on the platform Hic et Nunc.

However, as stated by Ario Tamat, Co-Founder and CEO Karyakarsa Dalam guest writing di DailySocial, there are other factors that greatly affect the possibility of an artist or musician getting income from his work through merchandise to NFT, even getting more income from services music streaming. That factor is the listener base or fans.

He also mentioned that NFT and merchandise are like “selling goods”. If there is no potential for the mass to sell goods, it will be a problem. The formation of a mass of listeners, connoisseurs and fans remains an important element in building the career of a commercial musician.