A Blockchain Enabled Solution for Royalty Tracking in Movies and

Music Industry

Mohit Mittal

, Khandakar F. Rahman

, C. K. Jha

, Vikram Bali

and Tejaswi Khanna

Banasthali Vidyapith, Banasthali, India

Galgotias College of Engineering, Greater Noida, India

Amity School of Engineering and Technology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Greater Noida, India

Keywords: Blockchain, Ethereum, Smart Contract, Music, Royalties

Abstract: Managing rights and revenues is a persistent issue for the music industry. The sales of digital music tracks

and albums must be more transparent between the music artist, the administrator, and other stakeholders. This

usually results in the artists needing to receive just compensation in royalties. This study suggests a blockchain

enabled online music publication and sales framework. The idea behind the solution is to use Ethereum

Blockchain intelligent contracts to control music track sales and ensure that the artist(s) and the administration

have agreed upon the payment distribution in cryptocurrency. The platform gives music artists, the

administration, and other stakeholders more leverage by offering an automated, transparent, and impenetrable

mechanism for tracking, administering, and distributing royalties.

1 INTRODUCTION

In its evolution towards digital distribution, the music

industry has encountered persistent challenges in

managing rights and royalties (Sharma, 2018), (Obi,

2023). Major obstacles to staying current with the

consequences on licensing and royalties payout for

artists, labels, publishers, composers, and streaming

service providers accompany the widespread shift

from tangible forms, such as CDs, to online streaming

services. Numerous infringements and difficulty

confirming and securing digital rights are issues the

field of digital copyright protection must deal with

(Shen, 2021). The opaque nature of digital music

sales often leads to discrepancies in the distribution

of royalties among music artists, administrators, and

other stakeholders (Bali et. al, 2021). This recurring

issue has prompted exploring innovative solutions to

ensure fair and transparent compensation for artists.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0611-4792

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7758-5172

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5002-3134

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2809-8455

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0029-2827

1.1 Music Distribution and Royalties

This platform seeks to redefine the relationships

between music artists, administrators, and various

stakeholders, providing a fair and verifiable system for

allocating royalties. The dearth of a consistent and

transparent process for tracking sales and allocating

royalties has frequently resulted in music artists

losing their fair part. This issue, as shown in Figure

1, is exacerbated by the intricate network of

agreements, licenses, and intermediaries involved in

the music industry.

The solution to automate and authenticate the full

lifetime of music track sales has been offered through

the use of self-executing contracts using the Ethereum

Blockchain (Oliva et. al, 2020). Smart contracts,

acting as self-executing agreements, encode the rules

and conditions the artists and administrators agreed

upon, ensuring each party receives their fair share of

royalties.

Mittal, M., Rahman, K. F., Jha, C. K., Bali, V. and Khanna, T.

A Blockchain Enabled Solution for Royalty Tracking in Movies and Music Industry.

DOI: 10.5220/0013237800004646

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Cognitive & Cloud Computing (IC3Com 2024), pages 57-67

ISBN: 978-989-758-739-9

Figure 1: Current Music Stores

In this article, the researchers demonstrate how

blockchain technology may successfully address the

issue facing the traditional publishing industry. One

area where blockchain holds the opportunity to

influence significantly is the online sale of music

songs (Sitonio and Nucciarelli, 2018). This platform's

primary goals are to ensure that customers obtain

original content and protect creators' intellectual

property against piracy, which is common in

traditional publishing. Adopting blockchain

technology will eliminate trust issues because all

transactions are timestamped chronologically, and the

data is tamper-proof (Estevam et. al, 2021).

Additionally, everyone involved in a transaction is

informed of its outcome. As a result, every entity

within the network has a log of every transaction's

specifics, such as the sale, the time, and the amount

paid (Ciriello et. al, 2023).

Smart contracts and blockchain technology provide

capabilities that can effectively govern how several

parties interact, eliminating the need for an

intermediary and securing and ensuring creator

royalty for each transaction, including a sale (Pei et.

al, 2018), (Khan et. al, 2021), (Joshi, et. al, 2024). The

envisioned platform provides features to empower

music artists, administrators, and stakeholders.

Automation, transparency, and obscurity are at the

core of the platform's design, offering a user-friendly

interface for inputting agreement details, tracking

sales, and accessing detailed royalty statements (Kim

et. al, 2023). The platform also embraces scalability,

security, and performance optimization strategies to

guarantee a robust and efficient system.

1.2 The challenge of digital piracy

The problem of digital piracy is of a similar kind. The

production house is handling a supply chain of digital

media products. This piracy can be caught in action

by implementing blockchain technology by keeping a

trace of the content (asset) owner and ownership

transfer. At the same time, the product changes hands

through the whole supply chain (Khanna et. al, 2020)

Such traceability models have been implemented and

evaluated in different use cases, such as fruit (Khanna

et. al, 2024) and pharmaceutical drug chains (Bali at.

al, 2022) (Uddin et. al, 2021).

In the landscape of the modern digital era, the rapid

advancement of technology has ushered in

transformative changes across industries, shaping

how information and content are produced,

distributed, and consumed (Park and Kim, 2024).

While this technological progress has opened doors to

unprecedented opportunities for content creators, it

has also created a complex and pervasive problem:

digital piracy. The unauthorized reproduction,

distribution, and consumption of copyrighted digital

content have emerged as significant challenges,

undermining the intellectual property rights of

creators, artists, and content producers.

Digital piracy encompasses a wide array of illicit

activities involving copyrighted digital content,

including but not limited to movies, music, software,

e-books, and video games. These acts of piracy

manifest in various forms, ranging from illegal

downloads and file-sharing platforms to streaming

sites that host copyrighted material without proper

authorization (Yadav et. al, 2022). This phenomenon

poses profound challenges across economic, legal,

and ethical domains, impacting the revenue streams

of content creators and distributors and the broader

content ecosystem and innovation cycle.

One of the most immediate and tangible

consequences of digital piracy is its negative impact

on the revenue generated by content creators and

producers. Unauthorized access to digital content

reduces sales and subscriptions, depriving creators of

the financial rewards they deserve for their creative

efforts. This economic strain can impede their ability

to invest in future projects, hampering innovation and

ultimately limiting the diversity and quality of content

available to consumers.

1.3 Organization of the paper

This paper is composed of six sections. Section one

introduces the problem faced in music distribution

and royalties disbursal and how digital piracy impacts

this issue. The second section presents the literature

review conducted for the research. The third section

IC3Com 2024 - International Conference on Cognitive & Cloud Computing

presents the methodology of how the decentralized

application (DApp) will be developed and deployed.

The fourth section presents the system architecture of

the suggested solution. Results and discussions of the

study have been presented in section five, with

conclusions and future scope described in the sixth

section.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

According to Sitonio and Nucciarelli, the industry's

structure might completely alter due to the

introduction of blockchain-powered models. The

study of its supply chain models revealed several

significant problems, including the ineffectiveness of

paying royalties, the need for more transparency

throughout the chain, and the poor negotiating power

of musicians through programs like metadata

analysis, smart contracts, and record keeping.

Intermediation may become obsolete, and these

problems are resolved.

Smart contracts have recently gained a lot of interest

because of their potential to transform many

industries completely. The work by Zheng et. al

(2020) thoroughly introduces smart contracts,

exploring their advancements, problems, and the

platforms that facilitate their use. The authors

highlight the multifaceted landscape of smart

contracts, shedding light on the complexities

researchers and practitioners encounter in this

dynamic field. The review underscores the challenges

inherent in smart contract development and

deployment, emphasizing the need for solutions to

scalability, security, and interoperability issues.

Several research suggest a comprehensive online

blockchains and simulation (Gao et. al, 2024).

through a public chain system, bypassing the need for

a central entity. Some research propose an Ethereum-

based, robust digitized intellectual property

management system (Khan et. al, 2020). These

systems also utilize the Inter Planetary File System

and smart contract-based paradigm (Peng et. al,

2019). Second, secure privacy and encrypt session

data using the enhanced ELGamal encryption

method. Assess the improved algorithm's

effectiveness. To demonstrate piracy, a transaction

watermark that matches the chain's transaction data is

also appended to the picture data.

A prototype of the blockchain-based DRM

mechanism has been proposed (Zhang and Zhao,

2018). Customers, advertisers, and content creators

interact with nodes via blockchain clients. Nodes are

responsible for doing fundamental tasks like creating

blocks and dealing with smart contracts. The digital

content is exclusively for the client's use. The license

contains the necessary guidelines and keys. By doing

this, fraudulent usage of digital content is prevented

(Liang et. al, 2020). Another platform system design

is based on blockchain technology by fusing IPFS

systems, timestamps, and smart contracts using

Hyperledger Fabric, the basis for the system

development (Tan et. al, 2021).

Moreover, the paper critically examines the advances

made in smart contract technologies. It explores how

these self-executing contracts have evolved,

incorporating advancements such as enhanced

scripting languages, consensus mechanisms, and

integration with other emerging technologies. The

literature review seeks to provide a thorough

overview of cutting-edge smart contract construction

by merging these advances.

Wohrer and Zdun (2021) significantly contribute to

the understanding and advancement of smart contract

development within the Ethereum ecosystem. The

identification and categorization of design patterns

enrich the academic discourse on blockchain

technology and offer practical guidance for

developers, fostering the continued evolution and

adoption of Ethereum-based smart contracts.

A research offers a valuable synthesis of the current

state of security in Ethereum deployed smart

contracts (Wang et. al, 2021). It consolidates existing

knowledge and charts a course for future

investigations, emphasizing the need for ongoing

efforts to enhance the security posture of Ethereum-

based decentralized applications.

Another research article offers a focused exploration

of blockchain technology as a framework for

protecting author royalties in the digital realm

(Nizamuddin et. al, 2021). It places itself in the larger

framework of blockchain applications for rights

management, adding to the current conversation

about using technology to help content creators deal

with the difficulties they confront in the digital world.

The research article (Yahya and Habbal, 2021) offers

a targeted investigation of blockchain technology's

usage in the music business, specifically with regard

to royalties. The study adds to the continuing

discussion about how blockchain technology may be

used in practice to solve enduring problems with

industry by putting out a particular payment plan.

Additionally, blockchain is beneficial for licensing

A Blockchain Enabled Solution for Royalty Tracking in Movies and Music Industry

involving artists and their creations (Adjovu and

Fabian, 2020)

The article (Lovett, 2020) thoroughly analyzes how

blockchain technology and digital innovation affect

the music business. It does this by drawing on

previous research to provide insights into these

technologies' revolutionary potential in changing the

music ecosystem's dynamics.

A proposed framework produces blocks based

exclusively on triggers when the user creates audio

assets, reducing blockchain operations. Via hashing,

encrypting, decrypting, digital signing, and signature

verification, it offers integrity, confidentiality, and

nonrepudiation (Kim and Kim, 2020). The

technology allows for continuous verification of

registered works from any location.

In addition to smart contracts, the IPFS file system

(Zheng et. al, 2018) can provide better protection to

music creators and their rights, as described in the

platform BMCProtector (Zhao and O’Mahony,

2018).

3 METHODOLOGY

As explained in this section, the proposed framework

may be developed by utilizing a set of technology

stacks. The complete methodology is also pictorially

represented in Figure 2.

Blockchain Technology

Ethereum: The core blockchain technology enabling

the creation and execution of smart contracts.

Ethereum provides a decentralized platform for rights

and royalties management in the music industry.

Contract Implementation

Solidity and JavaScript: Programming languages

used for writing smart contracts. Solidity is designed

explicitly for Ethereum smart contract development,

while JavaScript offers flexibility for interacting with

the Ethereum blockchain.

Truffle and Hardhat: Development platforms

facilitating smart contract development, testing, and

deployment. Truffle and Hardhat offer a suite of tools

for a streamlined development process.

Mocha and Chai: frameworks for testing smart

contracts to guarantee their dependability and

robustness. Mocha gives a testing framework for

thorough and lucid testing, while Chai provides

assertion libraries.

Blockchain Deployment

Ganache: A platform to create a private, internal

Ethereum ledger for development and test purposes,

Ganache allows developers to interact with a

simulated Ethereum network, reducing transaction

times.

MetaMask: A crypto-wallet accessed through a

browser extension. To communicate with the local

blockchain generated by Ganache, utilize MetaMask

to provide a secure way to manage transactions.

Figure 2: Methodology

Frontend Development

React is an open-source JavaScript library for

developing the decentralized application's front

(DApp). React offers an efficient and modular

approach to building user interfaces.

Backend Integration

Web3.js: A collection of libraries that facilitates

communication between the web application and the

Ethereum blockchain. Web3.js enables the

implementation of JSON-based Remote Procedure

Calls (RPCs) for seamless interaction.

Decentralized Storage

IPFS (InterPlanetary File System): A file storage

system leveraging Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking.

IPFS is used for storing files, including metadata, in

a decentralized and content-based manner.

Identity Management

OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect: Protocols utilized

for secure authorization and authentication processes.

OAuth 2.0 ensures secure authorization, while

OpenID Connect provides a standardized

authentication framework.

Token-based Authentication (e.g., JWT):

Mechanisms for secure authentication, using tokens

to verify and validate user identity securely.

Security and Encryption

HTTPS: Ensures secure data encryption for

communication between users and the system,

maintaining confidentiality and integrity.

Certificate Pinning: A security measure to ensure that

only valid certificates are accepted, enhancing the

system's overall security.

Access Control

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Implemented to

manage system permissions and user roles,

IC3Com 2024 - International Conference on Cognitive & Cloud Computing

guaranteeing that users have the proper access to

features based on their roles.

Logging and Monitoring

Event Logging: Implemented for critical transactions

and system monitoring, providing visibility into

system activities.

Tokenization of Assets

Token Standard (e.g., ERC-20): The chosen standard

for tokenizing assets within the smart contracts. ERC-

20 ensures the compatibility and interoperability of

tokens.

Decentralized Application (DApp)

Integration with IPFS: Seamless integration with

IPFS for decentralized storage and retrieval of

metadata, enhancing content delivery efficiency.

Pinning Services: Utilized to ensure the availability

of specific content on IPFS, even if original

contributors go offline.

4 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

The suggested system design, which focuses on

managing rights and royalties in the music industry,

incorporates Ethereum blockchain technology for

creating and implementing smart contracts. Ethereum

facilitates developing and implementing smart

contracts, which encode terms and conditions,

automate procedures, and carry out transactions

according to pre-established logic. The architectural

overview can be viewed in Figure 3. The

development process involves using languages such

as Solidity or JavaScript, with platforms like Truffle

and Hardhat for development and Mocha and Chai for

testing.

The diagram in Figure 3 shows a smart contract

between an artist and a publisher on the Ethereum

blockchain. The contract automates selling the artist's

work, ensuring that the artist is paid correctly and the

publisher receives the work they have paid for.

Figure 3: An Architectural Overview

Here are the steps involved in the process:

1. The artist creates the smart contract and specifies

the terms of the sale, such as the price of the

work and the royalty they will receive.

2. The publisher deposits the amount of money for

the work into the smart contract.

3. The artist deposits the work into the smart

contract, in the form of a hash (a unique

identifier) that proves they own the work.

4. The user deposits the same amount of money as

the publisher into the transaction.

5. The executable contract validates that the user

has deposited the correct amount of money and

that the artist has provided a valid hash.

6. If everything is correct, the work is transferred to

the consumer and the payment is disbursed to the

artist.

7. The user can then verify the download result.

8. After some time, the smart contract returns the

initial deposit and profit to the publisher.

9. The smart contract pays the artist a royalty on

every sale of the work.

The smart contract creation includes defining the

contract structure, declaring state variables, writing

functions, handling access control, and using events

for logging. Once a smart contract is created, it

undergoes deployment to the Ethereum network

through a user-initiated transaction. This process

involves creating a transaction that includes the

machine code of the smart contract. The transaction

is subsequently added to a new block and made

available on the blockchain after being verified by

Ethereum network miners. The Ethereum blockchain

creates a smart contract with a unique address and an

Application Binary Interface (ABI) that allows users

and other apps to communicate with it.

External interaction with the deployed smart contract

is facilitated through users or other smart contracts,

which can send transactions to its address. Figure 4

showcases the layered architecture of the model with

a network consisting of Polygon or Ethereum nodes.

Transaction parameters, such as data or values, can

be included depending on the specific method. The

smart contract's code contains predefined rules and

conditions for executing specific methods, leading to

automated processes such as calculations, data

storage, or interactions with other contracts. State

changes, including data storage and emitted events

during execution, are recorded on the blockchain,

ensuring transparency and immutability.

Ethereum's consensus mechanism, switching from

Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, achieves proper

transaction completion. Once a transaction is added

in a block and several subsequent blocks are added,

A Blockchain Enabled Solution for Royalty Tracking in Movies and Music Industry

the transaction is considered confirmed and

irreversible.

Figure 4: Layered Architecture

Ethereum requires users to pay for computational

resources using "gas," with transaction fees

compensating miners for the resources used in

executing the smart contract.

The proposed system also encompasses the

development of smart contracts for managing rights,

royalties, and transactions. This involves defining the

structure of smart contracts, implementing functions

for creating agreements, tracking sales, and

distributing royalties, and considering incorporating a

token standard (e.g., ERC-20, ERC-721) for asset

representation.

Identity management is a crucial architecture

component involving implementing a secure system to

verify and authenticate users. This includes collecting

necessary credentials for user registration, enforcing

strong password policies and multifactor

authentication, utilizing OAuth 2.0 for secure

authorization and OpenID Connect for authentication,

implementing token-based authentication mechanisms

(e.g., JWT), ensuring secure session management,

using HTTPS for data encryption, implementing

certificate pinning, incorporating Role-Based Access

Control, monitoring critical events, and

communicating privacy policies while obtaining user

consent for data processing.

The architecture further addresses tokenization of

assets, choosing a token standard (ERC-20),

implementing a token contract with logic for

ownership, transfers, and associated metadata,

deciding on metadata storage (on-chain, off-chain, or

a combination), minting tokens with considerations for

access controls, ensuring transferability, defining

metadata URI, integrating with IPFS or other storage

solutions, logging events, and developing a

decentralized application (DApp) for user interaction.

Figure 5 shows the schematic of the working of IPFS.

Decentralized storage is achieved through IPFS,

where files are distributed across a peer-to-peer

network. Metadata can be maintained off-chain on

IPFS, and the system integrates mechanisms to

handle metadata storage and retrieval efficiently.

Leveraging IPFS reduces the storage burden on the

blockchain, decreasing gas costs for token creation

and transfer transactions. The DApp seamlessly

integrates IPFS for storage and retrieval of metadata,

ensuring efficient content delivery.

Figure 5: Working of IPFS Storage

Users not running IPFS nodes can still access content

through gateways, facilitating broader adoption.

Access control mechanisms are considered to manage

content updates on IPFS, and pinning services are

utilized to ensure the availability of specific content,

even if original contributors go offline. Overall, the

proposed system architecture provides a

comprehensive and secure framework for rights and

royalties management in the music industry,

leveraging Ethereum, smart contracts, identity

management, tokenization, and decentralized storage.

5 ROYALTY DISTRIBUTION

FUNCTION

In the context of our blockchain-based framework for

automatic royalty disbursal, the royalty distribution

function is designed to ensure a fair and proportional

allocation of earnings to music artists based on their

contributions. The equation (1) represents this

function. By leveraging this formula within smart

contracts on the blockchain, publishers can automate

and transparently manage the disbursal process,

ensuring each artist receives their rightful share based

on their relative contribution to the total revenue. This

approach not only eliminates the need for

intermediaries but also enhances the efficiency,

security, and fairness of royalty payments.

The Royalty Distribution function is defined as:

IC3Com 2024 - International Conference on Cognitive & Cloud Computing

---- eq. (1)

where:

• R

is the royalty received by artist 𝑖.

•

𝑅 is the total royalty pool available for

distribution.

• S

is the share of the total stake or contribution

of artist 𝑖.

• ∑

is the sum of shares of all participating

artists.

1. Total Royalty Pool (𝑅)

The total royalty pool 𝑅 represents the total amount

of money available to be distributed among all

artists. This could be the revenue generated from

streaming services, sales, licensing fees, or other

sources.

2. Artist's Share (𝑆𝑖)

The share Si is a measure of artist i's contribution to

the total pool. This can be determined by various

metrics such as:

• Number of streams or downloads of the artist's

music.

• Percentage of total sales attributed to the artist.

• Specific contractual agreements that define an

artist's share.

3. Sum of Shares (∑jSj)

The sum of shares ∑jSj represents the total

contributions of all artists. It normalizes the

individual shares, ensuring that the distribution is

proportional to each artist's contribution relative to

the total.

1. Calculate the Total Contribution

(Denominator)

•

First, compute the sum of shares for all

artists: ∑jSj.

•

This sum represents the total measure of

contributions or stakes that artists have in

the revenue pool.

2. Determine the Artist's Proportion

(Numerator)

•

For each artist i, calculate their individual

share Si.

The pseudocode for this function is explained in the

results and discussions section.

6 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The music business can observe encouraging results

from adopting the suggested blockchain-based

system for managing rights and royalties.

Autonomously encoding and executing norms and

conditions of agreements can be effectively proved by

the smart contracts implemented on the Ethereum

network. Each smart contract was assigned a unique

address through the deployment process, and its ABI

was generated, facilitating seamless external

interaction. Transaction finality was ensured by the

Ethereum network's consensus mechanism. This

confirmed that transactions were included in the

blockchain irreversibly.

The identity management system proved effective in

ensuring secure user verification and authentication.

Implementing robust security measures, including

strong password policies, multifactor authentication,

and secure session management, contributed to a

secure user experience. The use of HTTPS encryption

and certificate pinning further enhanced the

confidentiality of user data during transmission.

Tokenization of assets using the ERC-20 standard

showcased the system's capability to handle fungible

assets with efficient logic for ownership, transfers,

and metadata management. A snippet of the

pseudocode for tokenization and access control is

shown in Figure 6. The integration with IPFS for

decentralized storage proved to be a pivotal decision,

optimizing gas costs associated with on-chain storage

and retrieval of metadata. The decentralized

application (DApp) successfully provided users a

user- friendly interface for interacting with tokens,

facilitating actions such as minting, transferring, and

viewing metadata.

Figure 6: Tokenization and access control pseudocode

Furthermore, the system's decentralized storage

component, leveraging IPFS, demonstrated its

𝑅𝑖 =

𝑅𝑋𝑆𝑗

𝛴𝑗𝑆𝑗

A Blockchain Enabled Solution for Royalty Tracking in Movies and Music Industry

effectiveness in distributing and storing metadata

peer-to-peer. The content addressing mechanism

ensured the uniqueness of the content's address (hash)

directly linked to the file's content, providing a form

of immutability. The musicHash has to be replaced by

ipfsHash. The depositMusicHash() function in Figure

7 can be updated to accept and store the artwork's

IPFS hash (CID) instead of the music hash itself.

Figure 7: Artwork sale and purchase pseudocode

This offloading of storage burden from the

blockchain significantly reduced gas costs for

transactions related to token creation and transfer,

contributing to the system's overall efficiency. This

research suggests that the proposed blockchain-based

system holds substantial promise for addressing the

challenges in rights and royalties management within

the music industry. The successful deployment of

smart contracts, robust identity management,

efficient tokenization of assets, and adequate

decentralized storage collectively contribute to a

comprehensive and innovative solution. Further

testing, real-world implementation, and user

feedback will be crucial to refining and optimizing

the system for broader adoption and industry impact.

For the automatic royalty computation, two key

functions—depositing the royalty pool and

distributing royalties—are central to the system's

operation. These functions ensure that the royalty

payments are fairly and transparently allocated to

music artists based on their contributions. The

depositRoyaltyPool() function, shown in figure 8,

allows the contract owner to deposit the total amount

of royalties to be distributed among the artists. This

amount, known as the total royalty pool (𝑅), is

collected from various revenue sources such as

streaming services, sales, and licensing fees.

Figure 8: Pseudocode for depositing Royalty Pool

Once deposited, the total royalty pool serves as the

basis for the subsequent distribution of royalties. The

distributeRoyalties() function as shown in figure 9

calculates each artist's share of the total royalty pool

based on their predefined share based on the function

defined in eq. (1).

Figure 9: Royalty Distribution Function Pseudocode

The depositRoyaltyPool() and distributeRoyalties

functions are integral to the automatic and transparent

royalty disbursal system. By employing a clear and

fair mathematical formula within these smart contract

functions, the blockchain framework ensures that

each artist receives their rightful share of the total

royalties, enhancing trust and efficiency in the royalty

distribution process. The provided pseudocode serves

as a blueprint for implementing these functions in a

Solidity smart contract.

7 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the research comprehensively explores

a blockchain-based system designed for rights and

royalties management in the music industry. The

successful implementation demonstrates the potential

for increased transparency, security, and efficiency in

managing music-related transactions. Integrating

decentralized identity management, tokenization of

assets, access control, and decentralized storage using

IPFS collectively contribute to a novel and innovative

solution for the challenges faced by artists, labels,

IC3Com 2024 - International Conference on Cognitive & Cloud Computing

studios, and other stakeholders in the current

centralized music ecosystem.

The proposed blockchain solution for automatic

royalty disbursal leverages smart contracts for fair

and transparent payments to music artists. To ensure

scalability, the system can integrate Layer 2 solutions

like state channels and rollups, as well as sharding, to

handle high transaction volumes efficiently.

Interoperability is achieved through cross-chain

communication protocols (e.g., Polkadot, Cosmos)

and decentralized oracles (e.g., Chainlink) to

integrate with various blockchains and external data

sources. For data storage and retrieval, the

InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) can be used to

manage large datasets like music files and metadata

in a decentralized manner. Regulatory compliance is

addressed by incorporating KYC (Know Your

Customer) mechanisms, auditability features, and

privacy-preserving technologies such as zero-

knowledge proofs. These technical strategies

collectively enhance the feasibility, efficiency, and

legal compliance of the blockchain-based royalty

distribution system.

There are a number of possible drawbacks to

distributing royalties only via cryptocurrency

payments. The value of royalties can fluctuate

significantly due to market volatility, which makes it

challenging for artists to plan financially.

Stakeholders without the technical know-how or

resources to work with cryptocurrencies may be

excluded due to accessibility difficulties. Complying

with international regulations and managing cross-

border payments can be challenging due to regulatory

unpredictability. Excessive transaction costs and

network bottlenecks can hinder productivity, while

security threats like fraud and hacking necessitate

careful precautions. Furthermore, sustainability

issues are brought up by the way some blockchain

networks affect the environment. Stablecoins and a

hybrid payment strategy that combines

cryptocurrencies and conventional payment systems

might help lessen these disadvantages.

While the results are promising, it is crucial to

recognize the ongoing nature of this work. Further

refinement and real-world testing are essential to

address potential challenges and ensure the

practicality and scalability of the proposed system.

Engaging with industry stakeholders, regulatory

bodies, and end-users will be pivotal in shaping the

system to align with industry standards and user

expectations. The continuous evolution of blockchain

technology, coupled with collaborative efforts within

the music industry, holds the potential to usher in a

transformative era of fairness, transparency, and

efficiency in rights and royalties management.

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