Blockchain-based digital rights management systems: Design principles for the music industry

Initially designed to protect intellectual property (IP) of digitalized information goods such as music, games, or books, existing centralized digital rights management (DRM) systems mostly serve the interests of major publishers, with scant inclusion of rights owners, creators, and consumers. Altho...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Electronic markets 2023-12, Vol.33 (1), p.5, Article 5
Main Authors: Ciriello, Raffaele Fabio, Torbensen, Alexandra Cecilie Gjøl, Hansen, Magnus Rotvit Perlt, Müller-Bloch, Christoph
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blockchain
Business and Management
Consumers
Copy protection
Cryptography
Design
Digital rights management
Distributed ledger
e-Commerce/e-business
Games
Intellectual property
IT in Business
Licensing
Management systems
Metadata
Music
Music industry
Owners
Principles
Research Paper
Royalty
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Summary:Initially designed to protect intellectual property (IP) of digitalized information goods such as music, games, or books, existing centralized digital rights management (DRM) systems mostly serve the interests of major publishers, with scant inclusion of rights owners, creators, and consumers. Although various blockchain-based DRM systems have been proposed, most of them mirror existing counterproductive IP restrictions. Analyzing the music industry as a case in point, this paper proposes design principles for blockchain-based DRM systems that provide an integrated and flexible solution by enabling transparent music licensing structures, consistent and complete rights metadata, and efficient and transparent royalty payout. The solution can be achieved by storing rights metadata on a public distributed ledger, by validating metadata through a consensus mechanism on a permissioned blockchain, and by algorithmically enforcing royalty payout via stablecoin through a smart contract. The design principles were evaluated by industry experts, validating their benefit for the music industry by increasing surplus value that is currently destroyed through previous suboptimal designs.
ISSN:1019-6781
1422-8890
DOI:10.1007/s12525-023-00628-5