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As a result, artists have attempted to develop creative ways of generating revenue.\u00a0 In 2014, Michigan-based band named Vulfpeck released an album titled \u201cSleepify,\u201d which was quite literally just a few minutes of silence.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 They uploaded it to Spotify in hopes of generating more revenue- by encouraging listeners to stream the album on repeat while they were sleeping (since it had no noise, and therefore would not interrupt one\u2019s sleep schedule), they generated over $20,000 in streaming revenue without even actively recording music.[5]<\/a> Spotify later pulled the album without citing a reason as to why- it was not in violation of the terms and conditions Vulfpeck agreed to when they uploaded their music to the service -but no album of a similar nature has been uploaded to the platform since.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since then, bands have been searching for ways to circumvent streaming platforms like Spotify, and as of 2021, there are new possibilities arriving for them to do so.\u00a0 Linking the purchase of music with cryptocurrency has long been alluring to musicians, since it operates on a blockchain (a form of digital ledger that eliminates the possibility of copying the cryptocurrency and using the copy to purchase something else, which, to frame it more accessibly, is a comparable process to copying a dollar bill and then attempting to spend that copy).[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Because of this, instead of being able to freely copy and distribute digital files, those purchasing music by way of cryptocurrency would be held accountable to their transaction since they would not be able to distribute the files freely.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Nashville-based band Kings of Leon is one of the first bands to take concrete steps to make this system of distributing music a reality.\u00a0 On March 3, 2021, the band announced that their newest album would be released as a non-fungible token (hereafter referred to as an NFT).[8]<\/a>\u00a0 An NFT is simply another type of cryptocurrency, once again housed on the blockchain.[9]<\/a>\u00a0 The difference between monetary cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and NFTs, however, is that NFTs house assets like art and music instead of money.[10]<\/a>\u00a0 As a result, consumers of Kings of Leon\u2019s new album would exchange their money for an NFT that houses the music on the album itself. Although the album will also be released on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple music, Kings of Leon will be attempting to incentivize purchase of the NFT edition of the album by including unique perks within it, such as concert tickets and digital art.[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Their hope with this album is to introduce their audience to the idea of integrating cryptocurrency into the process of music consumption.[12]<\/a>\u00a0 If they\u2019re successful, and if other bands follow their lead, the way the world consumes music could be completely transformed, and artists could see a dramatic increase in the revenue they generate for their hard work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> David Byrne, David Byrne: \u201cThe Internet Will Such All Creative Content Out of the World\u201d,<\/em> The Guardian, (Oct. 11, 2013, 10:53 AM), https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2013\/oct\/11\/david-byrne-internet-content-world<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Id.<\/em><\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Id.<\/em><\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Hugh McIntire, How a Band Made $20,000 on Spotify from 5 Minutes of Silence<\/em>, Forbes, (Jul. 28, 2014, 9:00 AM) https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/hughmcintyre\/2014\/07\/28\/how-a-band-made-20000-on-spotify-from-5-minutes-of-silence\/?sh=454b0cb418ed<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Id.<\/em><\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Id.<\/em><\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Samantha Hissong, A Field Guide to Music\u2019s Potential Crypto Boom<\/em>, Rolling Stone, (Feb. 4 2021, 12:36 PM), https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/pro\/features\/music-crypto-blockchain-nfts-guide-1116327\/<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Samantha Hissong, Kings of Leon Will Be the First Band to Release an Album as an NFT<\/em>, Rolling Stone, (Mar. 3, 2021, 8:00 AM), https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/pro\/news\/kings-of-leon-when-you-see-yourself-album-nft-crypto-1135192\/<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Id.<\/em><\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Id.<\/em><\/p>\n [11]<\/a> Id.<\/em><\/p>\n [12]<\/a> Id.<\/em><\/p>\n Image Source:\u00a0“Bitcoin, bitcoin coin, physical bitcoin, bitcoin photo”<\/a> by antanacoins<\/a><\/span> is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Emma Phillips Musicians around the world have vocalized their disdain for streaming services, stating that platforms like Spotify cater to the labels and the consumers, but not the artists themselves.[1]\u00a0 As things currently stand, for example, after taking their share, Spotify sends the remainder of the profits from streaming directly to the labels, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4744,"featured_media":9150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51366],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-post"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/files\/2021\/03\/Bitcoin-cc.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paMHOZ-2nz","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4744"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9153,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9149\/revisions\/9153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jolt.richmond.edu\/files\/2021\/03\/Bitcoin-cc-300x200.jpeg\")
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