VOXXO: Decentralising the Music Industry

Streamed music. That’s the modern wave of listening to music. Years ago, it was mp3, CDs, even cassette tapes. These days, access to music is through apps such as Spotify, Soundcloud, Apple Music and more. The revenue of streamed music by major apps in 2016 was $15–20 billion dollars and is estimated to increase to $30 billion in 2025. The platform of music listening is also changing, from pure audio to more access to concerts and world tours. This is because of cost effective transportation and the progress of recording and production technologies. However, music itself is facing manipulation, as there really are only a few major companies who monopolise the streaming music industry. This gives them a huge amount of power and they can influence or control the popularity and advertising of an artist content. Their choices are not driven by the quality of music, but by political and profitability goals. Musicians and artists are forced to be subjected their agreement policies if not they risk being left out of the main sources of streaming music and users are subject to licensing fees and streaming memberships. Imagine Spotify getting $10 from every person who wants to listen to music in this generation! That’s overpriced, huge ongoing revenue that doesn’t necessarily work in our best interest. All of these problems are because music and content is being evaluated by profit oriented structures, not the masses themselves. That’s where VOXXO steps in. VOXXO combines music with Blockchain, to enable a decentralised community that will stop organising, filtering or manipulated promotion in the music space. This will allow music to reach people with minimum influence and open up revolutionary activities and productions in the sector. The VOXXO project will comprise of multiple different components, beginning with the VOXXO mobile App, VOXXO Live Events, and VOXXO License Platform. The VOXXO mobile app will allow anyone to stream and listen to all their favourite music potentially for free. There will be advertisements after every 2 songs, should someone choose to listen for free. And this is an unlimited feature and users can go forward and backward freely. If a person doesn’t wish to listen to ads, there is the option of buying listening hours. Rather than a subscription participants can buy streaming hours with cryptocurrencies. Multiple cryptocurrency options will be available but there will be a discount for those who use VOXXO tokens to pay. Other features included in the app include creating, sharing and following song lists. Following artists and bands with chances to win free concert tickets and watch live concerts. One of the most interesting aspects of VOXXO to me is their Live Events Platforms. Live Concert is a very profitable business, literally millions of dollars are earned each concert. Rather than that money going to a middleman e.g. Sony, VOXXO allows their users to earn a cut of that profit. VOXXO users will be given a chance to first vote which musician and location they would like to see the concert in. Voting power is influenced by the VOXXO held. Once the decision has been made of who and where to have the concert, a crowdfunding stage is held where users can choose to invest into the concert organising. Once the event has been successfully concluded, crowdfunders/ investors will receive their funds back plus and additional revenue. I love this feature, because this is exactly what the entire concept of decentralisation is all about. It’s about removing the expensive, monopolising middleman, to create a direct link between two parties (in this case the musician and the listeners) and distribute the wealth to the lay person, giving the average person a chance to earn wealth. This is the very concept of Blockchain, a decentralised technology. Finally, VOXXO will help musicians and performers get their license revenues from VOXXO. Also using smart contracts, musicians will be paid in cryptocurrency when VOXXO users listen to their songs using the VOXXO app. This entire process will be done in collaboration with pros (e.g. ASCAP, BMI, PRS) to ensure fairness, security and professionalism. This is the team behind the project. Unfortunately the website/ whitepaper does not provide more details about the team at the moment, so any information I have is from Linkedin. Their founder is Armagan Ozsoy, he’s worked as a multimedia designer with MNV since 2008-present, and also software developer with CW Co. from 2016- present (according to Linkedin). I was unable to find their both event manager’s as well as content/ cinematographer profiles on Linkedin. Cagri Akkoc is their marketing/ PR manager. He was actually the owner/ partner of MNV Creative studios from 2010–2016. So at one point he was actually Armagan’s boss. Tables have turned it seems. He is currently a communications specialists for ODS Danismanlik. Strangely his Linkedin profile does not show him being part of the VOXXO project. VOXXO is a great project, but the team will need to update their resume and profile page soon. To be fair, their white paper has noted that they will update the team page with new members after their ICO finishes. So hopefully they will get around to this soon. This is the team’s roadmap. The crowdfunding phase is over. They are expected to launch v1.0 of their Mobile App in Oct 2018. This is the milestone to look out for, as it will be the MVP (Minimal Viable Product) for this project. 2019 will be a very busy year for the project, and it is when most of the project’s infrastructure will happen, including moving to Blockchain based cloud platforms, deploying VOXXO’s mainnet, activating VOXXO Live Events Platform, and collaboration with music companies and more. The end of 2019 is expected to see the World’s first cryptocurrency Performance Hall, which will be absolutely huge. Conclusion I think VOXXO is a really interesting project with a lot of potential. The music space definitely needs a decentralised initiative providing music to the masses at a fairer rate and a champion to be free the whole music industry from the current big monopoly. VOXXO could be the project to do just that. VOXXO is still in it’s infancy stages, and only time will tell if this David can take down the Goliaths out there.