Last week music startup Revelator raised around $2.5 million by offering a new kind of tracking for music rights and for allowing royalties to be more efficiently distributed to the correct owners.
At the heart of their proposed technology is the Blockchain which can be used to effectively record any kind of transaction or event. Similar to other companies, Revelator is finding applications for the Blockchain in other unrelated industries - in this case - music. The drastic efficiency and real-time updating of Blockchain allows Revelator to track the use of digital goods and distribute royalties to their owners when they’re due.
Prior to Revelator, musical artists did not receive their owed royalties for weeks and often months. The difficulty and corresponding time period is increased when multiple people split the royalties of the very same song. In fact, Revelator says that half of the royalties owed never get processed because of outdated systems and software.
Bruno Guez, CEO of Revelator, stated in a press release:
"If you have data every day, why can't we make payments every day? If you had 1,000 downloads, I can pay you $700 tomorrow."
Blockchain is a disruptive technology for the music industry
Blockchain is completely behind the speed increase, and the target audience are any key players in the music industry: artists, rights holders, managers, etc. The technology can be used to track downloads, streams, etc. all to one single platform which can always be relied upon.
"The Blockchain technology does provide a truly disruptive technology for the music industry. It’s not the only thing that matters and it won't solve all the problems in the industry, but I do believe our current offering introduces new features for music." said Guez.
As you can probably imagine, Blockchain technology could be applied to almost any scenario where it fills the context, and in any other industry.
"By experimenting now with a small proof-of-concept music library, we're going to be able to open new windows of opportunity for public radio in the future, through experimentation on the Blockchain," stated Meg Siegal, Head of Public Radio BizLab.
In its first round of funding, Revelator pulled in around $2.5 million led by Exigent Capital. Exigent was joined by the revered Digital Currency Group, which invests in Bitcoin and other similar Blockchain companies.
Originally a music company, Revelator has completely transformed because of the implementation of the Blockchain technology, so who knows in which other industries this could also occur in the future. Currently, Revelator is trying to solve the piracy problem for its industry with many more endeavors into the future.