Web3 technology is beginning to change the way many industries operate, and one area where it’s having a major impact is the music business. A myriad of platforms has been popping up over the past few years that aim to democratize the industry and help artists generate more revenue through things like metaverse performances and NFT sales.
One such platform that focuses on music streaming and minting NFT versions of songs that fans can purchase is Pianity, which launched last year and has already generated over $2 million in NFT sales for artists.
The Paris-based company raised $6.5 million in seed funding last month, which it plans to use to grow its team, expand to the US and Latin America, develop a mobile app, and further its goals to partner with major global music companies.
Pianity also pays out part of its earnings to the community each week — the amount that users receive corresponds to the size of their NFT collection.
XLIVE chatted with Pianity’s Head of Communications David Duarte to learn more about the new platform and its mission to help artists monetize their work in new ways.
XLIVE: How did the idea for Pianity it come about?
David Duarte: At first, the idea for Pianity was just to store the music on the blockchain to protect it and make it eternal. While the pandemic was raging, it became even more urgent for artists to get a new source of income as they couldn't do any shows or get any gigs. So we leveraged NFTs and created Pianity to provide this new source, because this is a big issue in the music industry. The whole idea on Pianity is that artists can sell tracks and music as limited editions. The platform was born during a six-week program organized by Arweave, which is the blockchain we use. After the program, we developed the platform, did a two-month beta, and officially launched last July.
XL: Are artists able to sell other types of NFTs, such as album art, etc.?
DD: We focus only on music. What you buy is a song, but artists can also add utilities and unlockable content. For example, they can add another version of the song, or exclusive access to their show. We have an artist that offered lifetime access to their shows through the NFTs, so the collector who purchased the unique edition of the NFT now has lifetime access to all the artist’s shows. There will always be more utilities added to NFTs. We can sell an album, you can sell an LP, you can even sell a live DJ set, as long as the artist has all the rights to the songs they play.
XL: Are artists able to interact with fans on the platform?
DD: Not on the platform, but through Discord. We have our own Discord where all the collectors, all the artists gather to talk about the release of our NFTs, about everything basically. It’s a whole new community. We also have more and more artists that are creating their own separate Discord servers, and for example, if you have an NFT from an artist that has a Discord, you can get access directly an exclusive channel that is only open the NFT owners.
XL: Have you experienced a lot of growth in the community since you launched?
DD: Yes — today, we have over 500 artists on the platform, we’ve sold 11,000 NFTs since we launched, and we’ve redistributed over $2 million to the artists. The community of users is growing as well. There are people who come just to discover and listen to music on Pianity because all of the music on the platform is free for streaming. You only have to pay if you want to collect NFTs. So we have people who come just to listen to music, and we have people who come to collect NFTs because they are fans or investors. Some of them are buying NFTs from emerging artists hoping to be able to resell them for a profit as the artist becomes more popular.
XL: Does the platform currently support the trading and reselling of NFTs?
DD: We actually just opened our secondary market. Collectors on Pianity are now able to sell their NFTs, and what's great is that every time an NFT is sold again, the artist will keep earning 8 percent of the transaction. They receive 80 percent of the first transaction, and 8 percent of every transaction after that.
Collectors can resell NFTs at a fixed price or via auction, and we'll soon we adding a functionality that allows user to make offers on any NFT on the platform, even if they are not listed for sale, which owners can accept or refuse.
XL: And you also redistribute earnings to the community?
DD: Yes, we are a DAO, or decentralized autonomous organization, which means the active members of Pianity have governance rights on the platform. All of the NFT collectors receive tokens — we have our own tokens called PIA. When they collect NFTs or complete certain actions, they receive tokens, and these tokens grant them voting rights. Artists can create their own profile on Pianity, through which they can add their track to what we call the Waitlist. All the active community members can then vote for the next song to be released as an NFT. Every day there are two tracks from the Waitlist that are voted by the members and that will be sold on Pianity as an NFT. Beyond that, every week, 50 percent of our earnings are redistributed to the NFT holders in the form of tokens.
XL: Do a lot of artists already know how this all works when they come to you? What type of education are you needing to do around NFT strategy?
DD: There is a lot of education around NFTs as well as helping artists understand exactly what we offer because we are not the only music NFT platform, but not all of them have the same strategy or the same product. For example, we don't sell royalties. Most of the artists are really concerned about this question about selling their royalties. We don't sell any royalties — you buy a reproduction of the music, and the artist keeps all their royalties. Again, this is because we want to provide a complementary source of income and not steal earnings from other streaming platforms. So we have a lot to explain to artists, and we tell them that they have everything to win by releasing an NFT and that they won’t lose anything.
XL: In terms of partnering with music festivals, what does that look like?
DD: For example, we’re partnering with MOGA festival, which is a festival in Portugal and in Morocco. As part of the partnership, we will record artists’ live performances and mint them as NFTs overnight so that the next day they can be sold on the platform. In addition, we can imagine a lot of other perks through partnerships with festivals. Maybe if you own a certain NFT, you can get lifetime access to the festival, or an exclusive experience during the festival. We can imagine that the DJs performing at festivals will be able to sell their set as an NFT after, because currently you can't monetize something like this unless you put it on YouTube. So it can provide another income stream for festival performers as well.
XL: How do you see Pianity and the music NFT space in general evolving in the future?
DD: Obviously this is subjective, but I think NFTs are basically the next mp3. 25 years ago, when we heard about mp3’s for the first time, no one knew exactly what it was, but within a few years it was extremely popular. Then came the streaming, which solved the issue of illegal downloading and access to music, but it doesn't solve the issue of artist revenues. So we think that it will all transition towards NFTs. That will probably be the next standard for music.
It's going to democratize the music industry, and NFTs will become more and more common to all types of different industries as well. They will have a lot more applications and utility. Pianity was made for every kind of artist, no matter their fan base, no matter how famous they are. We’re working with a lot of independent artists, they’re the first ones who will benefit from this since they don’t earn much through streaming platforms, but also with record labels. Even the bigger artists who are earning a lot on streaming will keep earning a lot with NFTs as well, and we already have a few examples.