so hi everybody
my name is Phil berry and I'm one of the
founders of boo Joe which is a
decentralized music platform built on
aetherium especially various people
involved in project here today Simon did
Olivier did a talk on tokens before
Christian Leung Chris has helped out and
there's all kinds of other people here
Russell etc but I have a confession to
make which is that I am NOT a developer
and not a coder and not an architect
I'm not a cryptographer I'm not a
technologist at any kind whatsoever so I
apologized what I appreciate is a
fundamental failing on my part in
attending this conference is a non non
tech but my background is in the music
industry and I started out music almost
exactly ten years ago working in record
companies I then embarked on a career as
a as a musician and ultimately set up my
own independent record company and after
eight years on the creative side of the
music business I kind of achieve lots of
things that I dreamt of doing when I was
growing up you know I performed on TV
I'd played all the major festivals I'd
played in 13 countries and I make almost
zero money doing this and as I came to
kind of two realizations the first one
was probably I was slightly deficient on
the talent front and the second one was
you know something was up with the music
industry and so for the last couple of
years I've really been focused on
working out what exactly it is this up
with the music industry and trying to
come up with some solutions
last year I was involved in a project
working with Radiohead and Thom Yorke I
spent several months working on a record
that he released through BitTorrent on
that project and then I eventually heard
about blockchain and went through the
process of you know heavenly angels
singing that all of us have had and then
I'm you know Here I am so let's start at
the beginning because to understand the
problems that face the music industry
today you kind of have to understand
that
what was going on at the beginning of
the 20th century when this was the
height of Technology because the core
institutions that form the basis of the
music industry's infrastructure like PRS
and ASCAP actually were born around the
same time that this ship the Titanic was
sinking on its maiden voyage in the
ocean and so that tells you almost
everything you need to know you know
this was a world before globalization
before digital and institutions and
systems that were created before you
could talk to somebody on this other
side of Atlantic by the telephone and
now being asked to handle a
hyper-connected digital global
marketplace with billions of
transactions and where payments and not
dollars but micro sense or in summary if
someone says to you music writes you
just have to think sinking ship
so if we could dig into this
globalization point you know if you
think about the world of the Titanic it
took weeks or months to travel from one
continent to another and so people
generally traded in their own continents
their own local markets and the people
that sent ships across the oceans in
these times intermediated between these
different markets and they did very well
out of it well today I can upload my
video to YouTube and before-breakfast it
can be watched in 50 countries but
actually the systems the processes the
structure of the music industry still
looks like those 20th century shipping
routes and so here we have an example
this is what happens if you're in a if
you are a American songwriter down the
bottom here whose song is played on the
radio in a country somewhere else
so perhaps Japan and this isn't even
cover the recording rights or the
performers or the producer any of that
this is just the song and it assumes one
songwriter which is very rare but it
just give you an example of just how
many intermediaries exist at the end of
the day the songwriter is getting about
half of the value of their music and it
takes them up to two years to get ahold
of this money and this is just absurd in
the in the new modern world
and at the same time we have this
explosion in in digital has been a
massive revolution in music industry
such that we're no longer selling CDs
with 10 songs on them worth $20 we're
now selling a single play of half of one
song and we're selling that for a tiny
tiny fractions of cents as the result
the amount of data that needs to be
processed is doubling every year there
are hunt literally hundreds of billions
of music uses taking taking place every
year and one single hit song think of
your you know your favorite Rihanna or
Taylor Swift song this has this kind of
songs have 700,000 individual revenue
streams
that's one song generating 700,000
different revenue streams and so it's
pretty clear that we're entering a
totally new paradigm in terms of the
amount of data that needs to be
processed and since the way that people
listen to music and in terms of Hutton's
of systems and processes they're going
to be required in order to deal with
this kind of music industry and all of
this is said against just a ridiculous
background of complexity in who owns
what in music this is a piece of music
called what by Big Sean I've never heard
it but I'm told that it's a really
strong piece of work and it has 20 it
has you know 20 plus people who all own
some you know from 1.8% up to 20% of
this song and what's amazing is that
there is no definitive record of this
information so every record company
every Performing Rights Society has
their own version and they really have a
hard time agreeing which version of the
information is correct and if you're an
artist or a songwriter well the problem
is if they don't agree you don't get
paid or maybe the wrong person gets paid
and you don't get paid ok well that's
probably enough winding enough
complaining about the problems in music
they we should start thinking about some
solutions and basically I think
blockchain if you're in blockchain has
two main parts of solution first is a
definitive decentralized database of
music rights of who owns what
solves the problem on the previous page
a secondary secondly an automated smart
contract based licensing system and the
project that we are working on Oh Joe
takes these core principles and then
comes up with four basic areas of
functionality first the decentralized
database part people publish rights
information on blockchain along with use
policies for how that music can be used
so now we have a single source of
information that everybody can use
second anybody can use the music as long
as they follow the terms of those use
policies and this is actually a
fundamentally different approach to
licensing which is not about control and
holding onto content but is saying let's
let content fly through the world and
people can use it freely as long as they
meet the terms set by the people that
created that content and third and at
the core of the automated automation
piece is that people get paid
automatically using a smart contract
when the music is used and on the other
in the other direction the permission to
use music the license is also
transferred by some contract and finally
this is core infrastructure so it's
designed to be open and adaptable to
almost any use anybody can come up with
a new business model a new app a new
service for music can plug into this and
make use of the content and the flows of
the flows of licenses etc within this so
last month we release the prototype in
collaboration with the grammy-winning
artist Imogen Heap
and this is a single song test case for
a new kind of music industry might look
like if it was built on the blockchain
and as I just described we have a set of
policies attached to the song which are
the terms under which music can be used
and also the details the share of
revenue that is owned by each of the
stakeholders so each different use a
stream a download or a sink
might have different use terms
associated with it and different splits
in this case we can see that image and
receiver you know ninety percent of a
download you know it seems a lot but
it's fair given that she's a songwriter
the publisher the record label the
performer the producer the artist
everything else and then non featured
artists will each receive in the region
of 1% each this is kind of an industry
standard figure so now I know not
knowing this information we can now test
it out by purchasing a download here we
use the light wallet that Christian from
consensus made and therefore all I got
to do to purchase this song is enter a
password I have the light wallet loaded
and then the song starts downloading
automatically the ephah price is updated
using an Oracle it's made by Simon and
therefore the price and u.s. dollars is
always the same which is attractive to
an artist in the current world who you
know just wants to receive dollars
frankly so I can let me see a
transparent list of transactions that
have all taken place what Cheney can
tell that I recorded this video three
times with I'm the last person to make
the glass to me transactions and this is
a you know fully transparent record of
whoever's interacted with this music and
then we have under distributions these
are the outcomes of the smart contract
being enacted based on the policies so
we can see that Imogen did get paid what
she should have got paid and we can see
that all the the non featured artists
got paid what they should have got paid
and so we can see exactly where the
money going and I can follow the tread
thread transparently from start to
finish
be confident that everybody is being
paid what they should be in accordance
with the policy and the smart contract
and this prototype is live now you Joe
music calm so feel free to go and blow
your point seven of an Easter download
this song and it's you know up there
semi-permanently so the prototype is
clearly limited in scope but the net
effect of all of this is that we can
create a fully automated licensing
system that directly addresses the
structural problems in the music
industry and what which we genuinely
believe can wreak untold havoc on the
old way of doing things it is
fundamental shared infrastructure that
allows creators and their customers to
do business with confidence and free of
intermediaries so perhaps we'll have
time for questions in a moment but first
I just want to say something about
adoption of this kind of a system
because one of those compelling
arguments that people put in music
against this kind of thing is that it is
simply unrealistic to expect rights
holders to unpick all of their hundred
years of contracts and jump on board
with this and you know when you think
about this it is actually quite a
depressing thought but fortunately when
I said compelling what I really meant
was really quite flawed and here's why
it's because today there are 30 million
songs on Spotify but in the next decade
they're going to be a hundred million
songs on Spotify and that is not just
all the new songs are going to be
written all the new bands that are going
to be formed but it's all the remixes
and samples and derivative works to the
user-generated content that are going to
be brought online over this time and so
it turns out we don't actually have to
solve this problem for the 30 million
songs that go back into history we just
have to solve them for the 70 million
songs they're gonna happen in the future
and these things are free of you know
free of all these attachments from the
past and the same applies the video
every single minute is it every single
minute 30 yeah every single minute 35
hours of video content uploaded to
YouTube so in the next decade we're
talking about 130 million hours of video
you know we can make a total great with
the past
cause the past is going to look like a
small minority of content in ten years
time and here's something else it turns
out that lots of the institutions that
we would like to disrupt or a place are
actually owned and controlled and run
for the interests of songwriters
publishers and artists and those
songwriters an artists are not happy
with the status quo and so yes we've
already worked with an independent
artist in Imogen Heap
we're currently working on a joint
project with an artist who has had two
top 20 albums in the US but we're also
already working with all of that not all
of them a large number of the big
institutions and music the people that
really control things and that's why
because the pressure from artists and
writers is real and it's not just about
music because music is a raw ingredient
that is used in film in TV and games in
your vines and so what we're talking
about here is a totally new paradigm for
content and all content creators and I
really believe that we are within
touching distance of achieving that so
thank you very much they don't have a
very quick question while they work out
with this time for it question
so this is come out of the consensus
organization which is an indeterminate
number between 50 and something above
that and I suppose and the people that
works on the prototype was sort of a
calling for about five you know back end
contract stuff front end development in
graphic design
you know me doing waiting my hands
around kind of thing
how does Imogen Heap feel about Howard
oddly I think one of the things that I
find the most interesting about it is
that having come having fully embraced
this idea of transparency and full
transparency I think that it is quite a
shock to suddenly have people be able to
see how much of the income she's
receiving and that's just an interesting
dynamic that wake up having to explore
and it but it's sort of what it proves
is that if it's transparent it has to be
right and so she's kind of really
thinking hard it's really making her
think hard about what should what should
artists get in a few shorts but it
should non featured artists get it
cetera
um so that's interesting you'd have to
ask him agenda for her own view on it
thank you