Blockchain consortium: A potential collaborative solution for the current music industry's challenges

Details

Supervisors

Coeurderoy, Régis

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion

Abstract

In the early 2000s, the music industry was facing important problems. The digitalization and internet have accentuated piracy behaviors. As a matter of fact, labels and artists revenues started to significantly drop. Fortunately, the market is slowly recovering with the arrival of on-demand streaming platforms that disrupted the industry. Their new business model allows free consumption for their users while assuring the payment of artists. First considered as a threat, digitalization has gradually become an ally in the fight against copyrights. Henceforth, the music industry started investing more and more in innovative technologies to enhance consumers experience and to make its business more sustainable. However, piracy did not vanish. Quite the opposite, new copyright issues have emerged. Some stakeholders in the music industry present Blockchain as a potential solution to the challenges that they are encountering. Indeed, multiple industries have built coopetition frames using the distributed ledger technology behind the blockchain to set up the consortium. Our thesis will explore the idea of a blockchain consortium that would gather the music industry partners and help to solve copyrights’ problems and in the long run create a sustainable fair ecosystem in the long run. This thesis will brighten the following issues: Does the music industry meet the required criterium for a feasible consortium? Would it be strategically reasonable for the music industry to consider investing in the Blockchain technology? Is the Blockchain able to disrupt and solve the music industry challenges?