Music to Muzika: ICO Review

Trying to break into the music industry is a very challenging task which gets the best of countless musicians. Many struggles to make valuable connections in the industry or to simply get people to listen to their music. This will change with Muzika and give the aspiring artist a fighting chance.

Current challenges in the music industry :

– Ask the musicians how they make money these days, and they will say, “live music.” In fact, ask anyone who never pays for recorded music how they support the musicians they love, and they’ll say, “I go to their shows.” However, there’s one major disconnect — playing live costs musicians money. A lot of money.

– Social media saving the broke musician from the marketing efforts and building their name, however, the flip side of connecting with fans via social media is that just because people are liking your video in social media or sharing your video does not mean that they are buying tickets to your shows. Nor does having 500,000 Facebook fans mean that you’ll sell 500,000 concert tickets.

– Musicians can make a viable living making music without having to sign with a record label these days. However, making your music requires an effort of a team including managers, PR, agents, and more. Despite this new found freedom, musicians often run into the challenge of attracting attention from the team members they want.

How Muzika will revolutionize the music industry :

Muzika builds an ecosystem which is driven by artists and their fans who are rewarded for the level of dedication and devotion put into music creation and consumption.

For Fans: Fans will be rewarded for their various community activities (e.g. share, like) with loyalty points, which will be converted into MZK coins. Fans can use MZK coins to sponsor their favorite artists, and in return receive exclusive benefits like enjoy exclusive & sponsor-only products, services, and opportunities to experience day-in-life-of their favorite artist and be involved in the creative process of a musical product.

For Artist: Unlike social media platforms like facebook following, user base in Muzika will not only work in community activities (like comment or share) but will also have a chance to sponsor their favorite artist.

Muzika ecosystem will also include production support to create a music album making it possible to make music without having to sign with a record label. The large user base and integration with popular platforms like Mapia company will help the larger consumption of artist content and get rewarded highly for their creativity.

In addition, Muzika platform will offer community programs and events such as auditions, contests, live-streaming events which will help the new artist to get established and make their name.

Why the need for blockchain :

Smart contracts for transparent and fair distribution: Smart contract will allow the automatic and instant transfer of tokens. No longer wait for end-of-month to get loyalty points or worry about if the transfer of tokens was fair and accurately distributed.

The content ownership right: With the use of blockchain, all contents information (e.g. owner) will be securely saved in the database which will allow interested parties to check if there are any undisputable record of who is the rightful owner of what content, hence protecting ownership right.

What problems it will help to solve :

– More engaging and rewarding:

Muzika platform will revolutionize the production, distribution, and consumption of digital music. With the support from Ontology (one of the well known and respected blockchain projects in the crypto community), Muzika will be able to introduce blockchain technology in its platform and build an integrated platform which aims to connect artists and fans directly hence increasing the artist’s profit and fans get rewarded for participating in community activities like consumption | sharing | brainstorming in music creation, hence creating a more engaging way for fans to connect with artist and vice — versa.

– Defend creativity:

Muzika platform will help to defend artist creativity.
Criminal organizations are always
seeking to profit from illegally obtaining the record before it is fully ready for release jeopardizes the work of artists.  Protecting all elements of an artist’s creative work from being leaked online in the run-up to its release is a key focus for record companies.

Use of blockchain platform will save music | content and its related information (e.g. artist, date) to be securely saved in the blockchain and share music securely, and ensuring only the agreed recipients are accessing it.

Growth prospects in the industry:

According to the report released by IFPI, total revenues for recorded music was $17.3 billion in the year 2017, an 8.1% growth compared to the previous year. The highest revenue source came from steaming which grew 41.1 %.

Driven by fans’ engagement with streaming — especially paid subscription audio streaming– digital revenues now account for more than half (54%) of the global recorded music market.

Note: Total music industry revenues for the year 2017 were still just 68.4% of the market’s peak in the year 1999. Global music market had endured 15 years of significant revenue decline, record companies are working hard to fuel new life in the music industry and trying to harness new technology | digital innovation to enrich fans experience.

To know more about Muzika,

Website | Read whitepaper | Chat in telegram

Our rating: B+

Pros:

• To foster sustainable growth in music markets, there is a need to create an engaging way for fans to access music on the platforms. Muzika could provide this alternative.
• The team behind Muzika were awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in 2018.
• In 2015, co-founders of Muzika saw an opportunity in the online instrumental music industry and started online instrumental music platform Mapiacompany. In just over 3 years, Mapiacompany has become the #1 global instrumental music platform with over 2 million users.
• Advance stage of development with main-net scheduled in Q2 2019.
• Muzika will be integrated with Mapiacompany platform which already has 17,000+ artists from 30+ nations to provide content and 2,000,000+ users from 150+ nations to consume content.
• The project has financial support from many venture capitals like NEO global capital and partnered with projects like Ontology.  

Cons:

• Mapia platform which will be the forefront for building Muzika ecosystem is based out of South Korea and has a huge community from there. It’s yet to test the waters at the global scale.
• The artist & users in Mapiacompany platforms are prominently instrumental listeners or learners. Yet to onboard music streamers.
• For startups to bring services to the market, it is imperative that the company become more vocal on their values and objective, and for that startups need to ensure that the community is well engaged. Currently, Muzika has yet to develop a strong community.