Summary of BBC article
According to “NFTs: Are they the future of the music industry?” by Alex Taylor (2021), NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have been increasing in popularity among musicians and fans. The technology enables the musicians to create more rare digital works and to claim full ownership on their creations, allowing them to sell their music for millions of dollars directly to their fans without sharing the profits with intermediaries such as distributors and publisher rights. While musicians enjoy higher earnings from their works, fans enjoy making profits from reselling NFTs to other fans as well. As NFTs are available online, fans must use crypto currency to buy it. However, some of them have complained about the inconvenient way of buying NFTs, and the selling practice permits fans who own more crypto currency to enjoy the rare music while preventing those who own less to afford it.
______________________
Response to BBC article
While reading the news article, I got the idea on selling my artworks and songs through NFTs, because the technology is very promising. Although many people do not like new disruptive technologies, I am in favor of such innovations as they can improve our life. According to the news, I understand how hard those musicians are trying to make a living through what they love to do. As mentioned in the news, some of them used to be paid under what they could get. I think this is unfair for them as it was their talents and their efforts—without them we will not have good songs to make us feel better when we are sad or happy. I also love music, and I am thinking about turning my love of music into my second career. However, before reading about NFTs, I used to be hesitant about making a living through music as I did not know how to make enough profit to support my life.
I think that the problems about copyright and ownership over musicians and artists’ works have been around since I was at school. At that time, a cassette tape was the piece of music that I could own and I bought lots of music albums of my favorite musicians. For a school student like me, 99 bath for a cassette tape was a bit expensive and it had taken me three months before I could save some money to buy a cassette tape. My friends would also experience the same thing, so sometimes we would make copies of our music albums and share in our group--that helped us save a lot of money. However, we changed our attitude after we went to a live concert of our most favorite music band. During the concert, while we enjoyed they performance, the vocalist of the band asked his fans to stop copying their music albums and buying from unauthorized dealers. He said “If you love us and want us to make good songs for you guys, please buy our albums from authorized dealers. We have worked extremely hard to entertain you! By the time we released our albums, we had done lot of things for two years at least. We have done this because it is our intention to produce good music.” After the concert, I felt ashamed every time I wanted to copy their songs.
______________________
Question for readers
If you could create an innovation, what would it be?
______________________
Reference
Taylor, A. (2021, May 21). NFTs: Are they the future of the music industry?. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57164487
Like Emma, I try to embrace new technology, which generally helps to make my life easier or more productive, and often both. I have, for example, used Microsoft's suite of Office apps since last century, from at least 1995. And because they are so useful to me, I'm happy to pay Microsoft for those benefits. I've also been very happy to pay NetFlix these last five years (I just checked my account details - I signed up five years ago). More recently, I've been learning another set of new tools and skills since Covid forced a sudden move to working online from home in March last year.
ReplyDeleteBut I have to confess that I've been a bit confused by the recent fuss over NFTs, so was glad to Emma choose this article. I like the idea of artists getting paid more directly by those who enjoy their creations, but if I understand correctly, an NFT is like an authentication of a particular copy of a digital product, which is nonetheless effectively identical to any other digital copy, just not authenticated as owned by a particular person. But perhaps I've misunderstood.
The high prices being paid reminded me of Bitcoin and other digital currencies that have been in the news lately. And that reminded me of the great Tulip bubble in Holland (the Dutch Republic) two hundred years ago. And that led me to think that there is nothing humans won't turn into money or a financial instrument. Gold, US$ notes (bits of paper!), tulip bulbs, AUD$ in my Australian bank that exist only as computer code on servers, Bitcoin, and now NFTs. What will become money next?
Thank you, Peter. I like your question that asks about possible forms of money that we will use to buy things in the future. Personally, I think things that people accept to have value for exchanging can become money. Before the monetary system that we use today, people in the old days used to use barter as the system of trade. In my country's history, Thai people used to exchange actual goods for things that they wanted. For example, they used to exchange two kilos of mango with one chicken. There was no medium of exchange. They were fine and not poor and they could exchange for goods and services that they needed. However, what is going wrong with the current monetary that we have been using? I can see that many people don't have enough money, the medium of exchange, and they cannot afford goods and services needed.
ReplyDeleteCan we have a freedom of exchanging for goods and services by determining 'money' by ourselves?
ReplyDeleteI like Emma's question asking whether we can effectively make up our own money (June 1, 10:02). Two things came to mind. First, when I was in primary school, collecting cards that came with some ice blocks was popular. The cards were usually of the popstars of the time, people like The Monkees or The Beatles. (If you haven't heard of The Monkees, that's not a problem. I'm guessing we've all heard of The Beatles, whose music was substantial enough to win them more enduring renown.) Anyway, after school, we used to trade the cards, but sometimes we also exchanged them for sweets. Does that mean that we had created our own money because the cards acted as a "medium of exchange", as Emma describes it (June 1, 9:59), quoting a common phrase? (There is no need to cite sources for common knowledge or to put a common expression in "quotation marks." I only added the quotation marks here because I did copy from Emma's comment as cited.)
DeleteNote the attributive language used to cite Emma's ideas.
DeleteResponding to blog comments is an opportunity to practice the important academic writing skill of attributing ideas to their sources. It also practices summarizing an idea to which you want to respond.
Thank you for your reply, Peter. I am really interested in the topic of money, not because I want to be rich rather I want to correct my bad habit of spending money. I think money is one of strange things. When I feel stressful, my brain tells me that I should spend money, shopping at department stores. And I ends up with spending 70% of my incomes on clothing, eating, and things that I don't really need at all.
DeleteI think money is also associated with successful, happiness, wealth, etc. But the most awful aspect of it are loss and scarcity, especially scarcity. I think I will be mad if I have no money or be in debt. I sometime wonder about be free from money--I mean can I live without money, the medium of exchange, but still have foods, healthcare, and fundamental stuff to support my life.
DeleteThank you for your interesting questions, Peter. For your question on exchanging cards for sweets, the cards is not a medium of exchange, because they are acceptable among a small group of people--your friends. A medium of exchange means any thing that acceptable widely in exchanging for goods and services.