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3LAU launches Royal to NFT music rights
Future. Popular EDM artist 3LAU is launching a music publishing platform powered by fan-purchased non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Think of it as a blockchain-backed stock market for music rights. With how much music publishing rights have sold for recently (Bob Dylan, Taylor Swift, The Killers) due to an explosion in streaming, song and album rights may be becoming a bonafide asset class.
Micro publishing rights
Justin Blau (aka 3LAU) has made $20 million from NFT auctions this year (including profits from the first-ever tokenized album), and now he wants to help other artists do the same.
- With funding from Founders Fund, Paradigm, and Matt Huang, Blau is launching a blockchain platform called Royal.
- It allows fans to invest and partly own rights to songs and albums through the sale of NFTs, which Royal is calling Limited Digital Assets.
- After purchasing, fans can then earn royalties alongside artists and access exclusive promotions or merch.
- The platform will exist on a blockchain that is yet to be determined.
- Royal will take a 10% fee for now, but hopes for the platform to eventually become entirely “community run.”
The project is currently in beta, with a full rollout planned in about eight months.
Fan funded
Blau calls Royal a realization of the “reverse record deal model,” where fans can prop up an artist financially, instead of arrangements where record labels take a “predatory” 80% of sales. But Blau is also playing diplomat and believes that labels can one day be involved in order to professionally finish music before it’s ready for wider distribution.
Royal is not the first platform of its kind, however. Another startup, Royalty Exchange, started selling music royalties as NFTs just this June.
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