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Security, transparency and permanency, make blockchain useful for all kinds of applications. Once such application is decentralized music distribution. Centralized streaming platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music, take up to 80% of the entire revenue stream, harming many small artists. While direct artists to fan sales were possible in the past, artists today are forced to rely on monopolized streaming platforms that pay as little as a fraction of a penny per play. Established artists that rely on tours and sponsorships can handle this, but smaller artists who only have a fan base of maybe a thousand, cannot survive in this industry with such a tiny revenue stream. Opus is a decentralized music-sharing platform that leverages blockchain technology. The block will have the identity of the buyer encoded in it, and the identity of the musician encoded in it as well. The music that the buyer wants will also be contained in the block. In addition, conditions of this transaction and control, the smart contracts can be encoded in the block. Once the block with this information is attached to the network, onto the blockchain, everybody knows that the musician sold a record to someone. The buyer can access the block since his identification is in the block, but can only access the music by fulfiling a certain condition in the smart contract. For example, a condition can be releasing funds to the musicians' bank accounts. Only when the condition is fulfilled, will the block allow the user to access and download the recorded music. There is no need for a music distributor here to verify payment made, the code verifies and executes. Musician and buyer are making transactions directly, and this guarantees fair compensation for artists. 97% of the revenue goes to the artists. It also guarantees transparent and reliable payment rules. Opus introduced its own digital token called OPT for payments and revenue management for both artists and fans. These tokens give new possibilities in the music industry. For example, artists can decide how to split revenues between fan members and how to split revenues for each song separately. You could also share their own revenue with defense and who in turn can then support their favorite artists, or can purchase extra content. The result here is also the ability to pay royalties to playlist creators, as well as allow for crowdfunding music production.

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Opus: using blockchain to decentralize music distribution

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