I. SoundCrowd

In 2017, as Bitcoin approached its first $20,000 peak and Ethereum enabled a new wave of tokenization experiments, Mat Dryhurst published an essay that captured the revolutionary potential many saw in blockchain technology. His "SoundCrowd" proposal envisioned tokenizing a music streaming service to create collective ownership of the platform, transforming artists and listeners from passive users into active stakeholders.

Looking back, Dryhurst's piece reads like a time capsule of Web3's early idealism. He wrote of tokens that would "work both as shares to be traded or used to participate in governance decisions and also as cryptocurrency to be spent on the platform." The vision was compelling: democratize platform ownership, align incentives between creators and fans, and build new economic models for music distribution.

But what's most fascinating about revisiting this proposal isn't just its optimism – it's how precisely it identified the music industry's fundamental challenges that persist today. The same problems that inspired Dryhurst's call for tokenization continue to plague artists: delayed royalty payments, opaque revenue splits, limited access to financing, and centralized platforms that extract rather than share value.

II. Reality check

Almost a decade later, the path from SoundCrowd’s vision to today shows both the promise and challenges of changing the music industry. Many projects have claimed to solve music's longstanding problems in recent years, but most failed because they learned something crucial too late – music rights aren't just technically complex, they're wrapped up in decades of industry relationships and business practices.

Early tokenization efforts had smart ideas; they built new markets and created new ways for artists to make money. These experiments proved particularly valuable for artists with dedicated fan communities but often created parallel economies operating separately from traditional distribution channels.

This isn’t necessarily bad, however, it comes with a challenge. Artists using these platforms ended up managing two disconnected worlds – their mainstream streaming presence on one side and their web3 collectors on the other. Most creators simply didn't have the time or bandwidth to handle business across these fragmented audiences, meaning that value created in one rarely translated to the other. These lessons pointed to a clear need before creating new markets: we need to fix the underlying systems that fragment the industry.

III. Boring is back (in a good way)

As Water & Music recently reported, the biggest checks in music tech are now flowing to the industry's least glamorous problems. Rights management and live music are outpacing generative AI in capital raised. Why are investors shifting focus? While Spotify transformed how we consume music, and social platforms changed how artists reach fans, the systems handling billions in royalty payments remain very old-fashioned. Most rights administrators still process payments using spreadsheets, manual database entries, and reconciliation processes that wouldn't look out of place in the '90s.

Meanwhile, the technology required to modernize them has matured considerably since SoundCrowd’s 2017 proposal. Take privacy, for example. What was theoretical research five years ago is now possible with zero-knowledge proofs, allowing systems to verify rights without exposing confidential deal terms. Solving one of the industry's most persistent tensions, between transparency and confidentiality, even these technological advances hit a wall when encountering how fragmented the music supply chain is. Many projects have created impressive tools that remained isolated from the real world, preventing proper evaluation of IP assets in an open market.

Music needs more than just new tech, it needs better systems. Simply replacing current industry standards like DDEX messages and XML files – the de facto standard for the formatting and delivery of metadata, that the entire digital music industry relies on to exchange rights information globally – won’t fix the problem overnight. The real solution lies in improving what happens after these files are processed – see how we brought the DDEX standard onchain here. This approach works because it acknowledges a simple truth: major music companies and distributors will continue to play a central role. Rather than building tools that compete with them, the smarter strategy is to create incentives for their participation. Encouraging them to verify release data with independent validators may seem minor, but it’s a significant step forward. This might sound less exciting than a complete revolution, but it's more likely to succeed while laying the groundwork for bigger changes ahead.

IV. Where do we go from here?

These insights from across the industry are shaping how we approach music tokenization at Original Works. Solving core infrastructure problems must come first, but how do we actually do it? We think a way is exploring how token incentives encourage better rights verification while discouraging inaccurate submissions through economic penalties. Forming governance structures where participants' interests align with data accuracy, in the end, preserving music ownership while preventing copyright infringement.

By capturing information from music distribution channels and integrating with them, we are building the Original Works Registry, which essentially creates an immutable audit trail for each song and its future metadata updates. This registry becomes a public index of verified releases while keeping sensitive cash flows private – allowing everyone to receive royalty payments that are verifiable to any party while maintaining confidential splits.

For artists, this means faster royalty payments; now in days rather than months, plus clear ownership verification, and access to advances without surrendering your IP rights. And because the system is permissionless and open-source, anyone can run a validator node to help secure the registry. Music IP remains a largely illiquid $45 billion industry waiting for modernization. While implementation requires patience and a realistic understanding of music industry dynamics, what's different now from 2017 is that we're no longer debating whether blockchain and tokenization belong in music, but rather how to make them work effectively.

If you've been watching this space evolve or you've been burned by "blockchain for music" promises before, we get it. From distributors who handle thousands of releases monthly to artists who face difficulties in receiving payouts in their country, Original Works is here to help music be heard. We welcome artist teams, managers, and creative co-ops looking to maintain traditional monetization while building new opportunities for their artists.

Whether you're curious about how these systems work or ready to explore specific implementations – join our community at hub.original.works

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References

1. Dryhurst, M. (2017, July 27). SoundCrowd: Tokenizing & collectivizing SoundCloud. BlockChannel.
2. Hu, C. (2025, January 30). Where’s The Money Flowing In Music Tech? Water & Music.
3. Original Works. (2025). Original Works Gitbook.