For there to be an evolution in society, there must be a new technology that is very useful and friendly. However, this is necessary but not sufficient, and for this evolution, technology must be disruptive, causing a paradigm shift, that is, a new way of doing things.
Culture in society is an important element in paradigm shifts, and music is one of the most important arts in the history of mankind.
The financial structures that govern the music industry in the digital age are antiquated. Most streaming platforms and record labels take the lion’s share of the revenue, leaving little or no rights to the artists, mainly the less famous ones. In addition, there is no possibility for fans to interact financially benefiting from the artistic production.
The paradigm shift will be music becoming a collector’s item again, creating a new asset class and combining it with DeFi (Decentralized Finance).
At the end I leave an article on the topic (1).
A group of people had the vision to create a community-owned platform, which will directly connect artists with their followers, eliminating intermediaries, replacing them with code in blockchain technology, and incentivizing profits.
The projectNEWM aims to change the music industry, removing power from the intermediaries between artists and their fans.
We have seen the interest that non-fungible tokens (NFT) have in the world of digital art, mainly in Cardano, as native tokens. Now NFTs will be used in the music industry. Artists will be able to securely sell/auction music via NTFs, as well as Intellectual Property rights, directly to fans, music labels and investors. Even partial royalties can be sold, fractioned.
The more successful artists are, the more value their NFTs have. This creates monetary and marketing incentives, generating revenue for all owners of those NFTs.
Both members of the artistic production, as well as investors, will receive their fair share of music streaming rights, when they are using the NEWM application for distribution. Royalties may also be collected from other major streaming services, with which agreements are reached, such as Apple Music, Google Music, Napster, Spotify, etc.
In addition, the DeFi protocol will allow members of the artistic production to use their NFTs as collateral to borrow from investors. Fans can also be investors. Cash flow is a must for artists to focus on their next big project. This projectNEWM will make crowdfunding possible in a peer-to-peer system.
The core technology of NEWM will run on Cardano Layer-1, regarding NFTs for copyright and song sales, but streaming will run outside of the Cardano blockchain.
The name NEWM derives from the word neume (/njuːm/; sometimes spelled neum), the basic element of Western and Eastern staves, before the invention of five-line staves.
The 5 Ecosystem Tenets
Tokenomics
The token is called NEWM, and its symbol is Ɲ. The utility of Ɲ is built on three strong pillars: governance, in-app usage, and staking incentives. This not only creates the best possible experience for participants in the NEWM ecosystem, but also supports the evolution of the token over time, adding more utility to strengthen and decentralize the ecosystem.
The total supply of tokens will be Ɲ 9,735,033,900, on the Cardano blockchain, basing the total supply on the estimated world population for the year 2050.
Vesting in detail
- Founders & Management: 5 years, with cliff
- Core Team: 4 years, with cliff
- Advisors: 3 years, with cliff
- Community Token Sales: No vesting, with lockup period WhitePaper Token
Investment
The investment rounds are strategically positioned to contribute to the long-term success of projectNEWM as a major player in the music industry.
Governance
One of the main features of the Ɲ token is to give holders the ability to choose the direction in which the platform will develop. Each holder of Ɲ will have the ability to delegate to different representatives in the spirit of liquid democracy, or vote and submit referendum proposals in their own name through a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) structure.
The projectNEWM team plans a DAO structure, which will be independent within the next 4-5 years, with a feasible transition after the launch and stabilization of the first 3 NEWMiverse tenets. The structure of the DAO is under construction.
Prior to launch, it remains essential that the core team maintain governance, to drive product delivery, however the DAO will play an advisory role post core product launch, to ensure community engagement and harness collective wisdom.
The goal of projectNEWM is to take advantage of a governance structure with a reputation system, which can be obtained in three different areas: Economy, Technology and Community.
Thus, the team decided that the governance structure will not be based solely on the possession of Ɲ tokens, as this can lead to collusion, bribery and other undesirable effects. The goal is to build a meritocratic government, with strong democratic oversight by Ɲ token holders.
To achieve this, the governance of the NEWM project will have three Councils, namely the Community, the Economic and the Technical, as well as a Judicial Body and a General Assembly.
System of Usage and Levels in the Application
All operations carried out on the platform between the individual parties are handled with the native token Ɲ or ₳DA.
The level system is an unlock system over time. Each level will unlock various benefits for the end user, in addition to the artists and labels, if they want to benefit from all the features. Thus, the customer can unlock different levels, from a monthly discount, to special content from their favorite artists, or early access to the sale of rights or other advantages.
Musicians or record labels, for their part, can access more platform features by blocking Ɲ, such as enabling ticket sales for physical events or the dissemination of their artists’ promotional content to free subscription users, etc.
There will be a support fund for independent artists, which will allow them to launch their first projects, buying the intellectual property rights of those songs and then selling these rights to the community, where a part of the part of the income will go to the artist, another part will go to the fund’s treasury, and another part will be distributed based on the delegation time of the NEWM stakers.
All stakers in the support fund will also have voting rights to decide who will receive support from the fund.
Security
Security audits are an important part of any decentralized system. projectNEWM has built-in security advisors and systematically audits all systems to ensure the security of user data.
Cloud server for scalability
There will initially be a need to run centralized hardware for scalability and mass adoption, such as streaming services on Amazon Web Services (AWS), until there are decentralized options robust enough to handle large streaming loads.
Kogmios Library
Ogmios is an open source, low-level communication layer in Cardano. Kogmios is a library created by projectNEWM built on top of Ogmios to allow Kotlin code to communicate with Cardano.
Identification (iDenfy)
iDenfy was founded before AML, fraud and GDPR regulations were in place, and pioneered a new era of identity verification. The company covers the user identity verification process in its entirety, combining biometric recognition based on AI recognition, guaranteeing that they are real users.
Authentication
The platform will use Oauth for social login integration, for a seamless user experience.
Smart contract
The NFT fractionation smart contract will manage the intellectual property rights of a song in a decentralized way, locking the NFT in the smart contract.
Security of Funds
All user tokens, whether Ɲ, ₳DA or NFT-royalty will be held in user self-custody or multi-signature wallets.
A Revolutionary NFTBased Ecosystem
Artist
Step 1
Each song’s music IP rights are fractionalized into X amount of pieces decided by the uploader at the time of minting.
NFT
Step 2
Musicians can sell as many pieces as they want to the audience (eg, investors and collectors).
Audience
Step 3
The audience can trade music IP rights on the secondary market.
Peer-to-Peer
Streaming, Distribution, Royalty Collection
Streaming
Step 1
Our distribution system sends the music to each major player – Apple Music, Spotify, etc.
Streaming, Distribution, Royalty Collection
Royalties
Step 2
NEWM automatically collects all the royalties for the music minted and distributed from our platform within the payout cycle of the aforementioned streaming platforms.
Distribution
Step 3
The protocol handles the distribution of royalties based on ownership percentages.
Artists & Audience
Step 4
Every NFT holder automatically receives the royalties according to the percentage of NFTs
they hold.
The Future of The NEWM Ecosystem
Deposit
Step 1
NFT holders put NFT in an escrow smart contract.
Liquidity
Step 2
NFT holders receive liquidity from a liquidity pool and in exchange put up the NFT as collateral.
Amortization
Step 3
Future royalty payouts will repay the loan with interest to the lender.
Compensation
Step 4 (rare)
If future royalties are not enough to pay back the loan, the NFT used as collateral will transfer to the lender.
Future Features
Already in the pipeline
- Collectible
- Ticket sales
- Micropayment -tipping functionality
- Virtual live events
- Independent artist community support fund
- Expansion to other IP rights – eg, Synchronizing rights
Further growth potential
- Expand to the manga/comic industry
- Expand to the film industry
The Roadmap
Jazz Era
- Login & authentication
- Metadata storage
- Music uploading
- Initial release of Artist Portal MVP
- Fractionalized NFT ownership of music IP rights on Cardano held in a smart contract
- Initial IP rights transaction
- Music distribution and royalty collection & distribution (3rd party platforms only)
- Click-thru demo of the NEWM App
- iOS/Android native app demo
Rock Era
- NFT marketplace
- Tradeable ownership of fractional IP and royalty rights
- Custodial wallet development
- Mobile experience
- iOS/Android native apps
- Direct artist interactions
R&B Era
- Music streaming platform
- Direct tipping
- Owner’s of fractionalized IP rights receive royalty payments in real time based on streams (NE WM streaming platform)
- Live streaming performances
- Ticket sales
Disco Era
- Decentralization transition
- Streaming decentralization
- Storage decentralization
- Database decentralization
- DeFi lending and borrowing integration for music NFTs
- Advent of musician support fund
Pop Era
- Governance
- Creation of DAO
- DAO sponsorship of musicians
- Community voting on project direction
The Team
The team tells us that it is made up of financial experts, legal scholars, blockchain technicians, designers, marketing gurus, community builders, music lovers, entrepreneurs, industry experts, and seasoned executives with experience.
Ryan Jones, Co-CEO (Partnerships)
Career musician with profound knowledge of the music industry. Illustrated leader with the ability to unite expert talent and professionals on a global scale behind the project NEWM vision. LinkedIn.
Florian Sorg, Co-CEO (Operations & Finance)
Highly analytical personality with keen attention to detail combined with years of financial and economic experience in the VC/Tech space. Proven expert in operations, HR and education. LinkedIn.
Tiziana Pittini, CPO
Project management with a creative mind, ensuring crypto users enjoy our service and non-crypto users transition easily into this new space. LinkedIn.
Andrew Westberg, CTO
Deep technical knowledge of both the Cardano blockchain and proven experience delivering apps with global reach and scale for fortune 500 companies. LinkedIn.
You can see all its members, here.
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(1) Article: The Transformation of the Music Industry in the Digital Age
Website: https://projectnewm.io
