NFT Darling Issue #1: Introduction; 20 problems with music NFTs today
This is taken from NFT Darling — The weekly education newsletter for NFT musicians and artists. Join free at https://nftdarling.club.
Hi, this is Mai-Khanh, and this is the first newsletter issue — sent all the way from Australia 🦘🎵
I hope this is a good time for you to learn, as it’ll take you ~5 min to read this email. If not, bookmark it and come back at a better time for you!
A bit about me: I’ve always had a passion for music but never thought I could make a career out of it. In 2021, I started my foray into the NFT world with buying and minting art NFTs. I then realised that there are different “NFT worlds” that I could be a part of — art, fashion, brand, and of course, music — each with its own community, flavour, and culture. I never ended up exploring the music world… until now.
🦄 NFT Darling
I know very little about music NFTs, but what I do know is that I learn really fast. I soak up knowledge like a sponge. So I thought, why not start rekindling my love for music through learning and helping others learn as well?
I love exploring ideas, experimenting with them, and especially chewing on things. So, in each newsletter, you will learn about music NFTs through my break-downs of material that I have come across recently. This way, you can learn about different ideas and concepts on a deeper level. Consider this a snack-bite education break :)
🗞 This Week’s Material
This week, I’m including a digest of Cooper Turley’s Twitter thread, 20 problems with music NFTs today. From what I’ve seen, I consider Cooper one of the veterans in the music NFTs space — so it’s worth reading his pieces.
I thought this is an interesting piece to start because my first question as a total newbie is, why should I not care about music NFTs?
Because you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re already interested in music NFTs, but including it in your work can seem confusing, hard, or even scary. So, your brain will naturally find ways not to invest too much time into learning about them.
Cooper listed 20 problems, but I have chosen 3 from the thread to review. This way, you can quickly evaluate for yourself whether this is something worth investing your time and money into right now. However, if you prefer to read the whole thread, here’s the link.
Of course, I’m not saying not to consider music NFTs — if not, I wouldn’t be starting this newsletter. We’re simply getting the objections out of the way first 😉
Alright, let’s get started:
Problem #1: Accessibility
• All top music NFT platforms suffer from gatekeeping
• Interested artists do not have a smooth onramp into the space
• Music NFTs are expensive and bar out the average fan from collecting
Gatekeeping
This is already interesting. Basically, what Cooper is saying that all top music NFT platforms have some kind of gated access. This means that as an artist, you’d have to fill in an application form to join.
I think gatekeeping doesn’t necessarily have to be bad at this stage, as it preserves the level of quality and care from the app creators to improve the artist’s experience. Not only that, because you are joining with other artists, there’s an opportunity to make friends and be around people who are starting like you in a small and private community. On the other side, if you’re looking to put your music up quickly and test things out, you might not like the wait or the handholding as much.
What would help you to know is that there are different types of NFT platforms. Currently, I can see 2 so far:
• General NFT platforms that support audio files (open to everyone)
• Music-only NFT platforms (gatekeeping — require application)
So basically, as an artist, you have a choice to where to mint your NFTs. The general platforms like OpenSea, Rarible, or Zora — which are big platforms — are open to everyone and artists do share on those too. When you share on those platforms, you can expose your music to a wider audience, whose interests span across music, art, brand, culture, and more.
Onramp
I’m not exactly sure what Cooper means by smooth onramp. I think it means that there are no music NFT schools that you can just enrol in and learn from, but rather through trial and error. It’s valid for you to wait until later to be involved — because as the technology matures, the experience would presumably get better in time. But if you are into exploring and experimenting then I think you will find the process exhilarating and meaningful (as you are one of the first to be in this space).
Price
It’s worth noting that you can set your own price as an artist. So, the price of an NFT can be anywhere from $1 to $100 million and more. Because of this huge range, honestly, I think it depends on how you position your music NFT and which portion of your fans are you are marketing it to.
For example, if you are an artist/ musician with a solid fan base who’s selling special-edition music NFTs to your top fans in addition to your already-released music on Spotify, you’d have a difference price than if you are a new artist breaking into the market and don’t have any fans yet.
My insight is to know your fans really well — know what they like — but also to know yourself really well — where you are at, where you would like to be, and how you would like to position yourself in the space. This helps you create a pricing strategy that not only fits your goals and plans, but can evolve with time as you grow as an artist.
Problem #2: Consumption
• Music NFT players are very limited
• It’s difficult to play your music NFTs, or to show them to friends
• The mediums to enjoy the music are not up to par with what people expect
I actually have a personal experience with playing music NFTs. I tried using Catalog (one of the popular platforms, built on the Ethereum blockchain) and gosh it is so SLOW to play a song! Granted, the app is in beta, so it’s still in its infancy. Because these NFT platforms are so new, they can be inconvenient or unintuitive to use (e.g don’t have a mobile app, slow loading times, hard to navigate the platform).
However, it also depends on which platform you’re choosing to release your music from. I found this platform called Releap, which is built on Solana, another chain. This one is fast and friendly to use — it looks like something I would choose 😋). Glass is also another platform that has a sick interface.
Before you commit to a music NFT platform to sell your music, I’d suggest getting to know what options you have and thoroughly test them out first so you can make sure your listeners have the best experience possible.
Problem #3: Ownership
• Most music NFTs come with no underlying ownership
• While there are platforms that support this, the vast majority of traffic today is around collectibles
• Many have a hard time understanding why a collectible has value — let alone thousands of dollars
This seems like a murky area. Basically, when your fans buy your music NFTs, unless specified otherwise, they don’t own the physical item or the IP rights connected to it. They would own the digital representation of the song, which is established by the blockchain contract. I found this rejected New Yorkers cartoon that explains how music NFT ownership works.
Why is this important for you to know? It’s important because when you’re selling music NFTs, you’re selling the “collectible” — the digital representation of the music — and when you’re a growing musician, it can be hard to justify why your fans would buy that for hundreds or thousands of dollars. However, if your approach is based on having extremely loyal fans who support you no matter what you do, or having fans who are already in the music NFT world, then it wouldn’t be as big of a potential problem for you.
That’s it for now!
I hope you enjoy the first issue of NFT Darling and learned something useful. If you like it, sign up free using this link — and share it with your friends so they know about it too.
