The Musician’s Guide to Web3

5. Create an experience unlocked by NFTs: These experiences can be either digital or physical. Access to a private Discord or to gated content on a website is a simple kind of experience, but there’s a much wider range of possibilities.

14. Reward Your Biggest Fans

1. Sell music or visual art as a collectible NFT: This is the most common model for music NFTs today. Artists will sell music or media (photo/video) related to their music as an NFT. Platforms like Catalog, Sound, Nina or MintSongs focus on music itself. But you can also offer derivative assets like music videos, demo recordings, alternative versio... See more

9. Create new kinds of art: Web3 gives artists new tools and a new language for creative work. Artists should embrace these opportunities to experiment and try new ways of presenting their craft.

6. Play with the building blocks of music: As creators of the “building blocks” of music, music producers are the perfect audience to explore the composability of NFTs. Areas like credit splits, sampling, remixing, beat libraries, engineer and producer DAOs and so on are all waiting for web3 innovators to tackle.

7. Create a private community or fan club: For musicians, this might mean something like a fan club where the NFT acts as a membership pass into the club. With that membership comes all kinds of perks: meet-and-greets, early or exclusive access to merch and tickets, unreleased music, artist Q&As, etc.

11. Sell a sync license: NFTs offer a potential opportunity for simplifying the sync licensing process. By embedding a complex set of rights and licenses into a fairly liquid digital token, copyright owners can simplify how they issue licenses and how everyone gets paid.

13. Collab with an established community or brand: One of the biggest trends in media and commerce has been the rising impact of brand collaborations. Whether it’s pop stars bringing in A-List producers, remixers or features to bolster a track or Supreme collaborating with the likes of Louis Vuitton and Comme des Garçons, collabs have become an ess... See more

4. Capture meaningful cultural moments: NFTs are not valuable because of “utility” or vague notions of community. The real value of NFTs comes from the “meaning” they represent as the cultural artifacts of communities.

Despite the recent downturn, the music industry’s interest in web3 is still as strong as ever. Artists, managers and labels are all coming around to the idea that web3 represents a massive opportunity to re-architect how musicians earn a living and connect with their fans. As an artist or manager, you might be wondering what your web3 strategy is g... See more