DJ Gareth Emery launches Choon, a disruptive blockchain-based music streaming service that directs 80% of revenue to artists

06 February 2018 - Press release

DJ Gareth Emery launches Choon, a disruptive blockchain-based music streaming service that directs 80 per cent of revenue to artists

• Setting out to disrupt Spotify’s complex and extremely minimal compensation mechanism, Choon uses a digital payments ecosystem that pays four fifths of profits directly and immediately to independent music content creators
• Founders and advisors include blockchain technologists as well as established music industry professionals such as Grammy Award-winning RAC and Dubstep DJ, Datsik
• Choon’s innovation extends to Smart Record Contracts which simplifies music contracts, licensing and payments by securing storing the information on the Blockchain

Today marks the highly anticipated launch of Choon, a digital music streaming platform that addresses the fundamental problems of unfair compensation for artists and the consumer’s inability to directly support their favourite music makers. The creators of Choon believe it is essential to radically rethink the revenue model associated with music consumption in an era of unlimited digital distribution, frictionless payments, and decentralised cryptocurrency.

Choon is the brainchild of Gareth Emery, the internationally renowned DJ and crypto enthusiast who has been deeply engaged in the workings of the music industry over the past two decades. Emery has observed that since the beginning of online music consumption, the music industry has consistently failed to provide the public with a means to consume music in a way that is both convenient and fair – especially for artists. Although this is a long-standing problem in the industry, streaming monopolies like Spotify are now coming under public scrutiny for their refusal to adopt a model that fairly compensates music makers. Still, many in the industry believe that the model employed by Spotify and other similar services is “the best that we are going to get”. This is where Choon comes in with a future-oriented disruptive approach that shows there is a better and financially viable alternative.

Choon reimagines the familiar music streaming service model in two ways:

1. It offers a platform where artists can upload their music, share it with others, and immediately be paid 80% of the proceeds from the streaming of their material
2. Its Smart Record Contracts represent a stratospheric improvement over standard music industry contracting. It replaces the current recording of royalty splits in a transparent way that requires no trust between parties and no need for lawyers

The service additionally differs from existing competitors in that it only accepts direct applications from artists, not from record labels. Established, independent artists with millions of followers have already signed up to Choon.

“In the current music streaming model, listeners can access music easily and conveniently, but artists are severely disadvantaged. The original ethos behind the likes of Spotify was to disrupt the major label monopoly and allow artists to succeed independently. Instead, Spotify is now liaising with labels under restrictive deals where both it and the labels benefit whilst artists lose out on most of the streaming revenue,” Emery said.

“As a performing DJ, I am fortunate to make most of my income from live shows, but I also know what goes on in the world of streaming. Despite my music being streamed millions of times each month, I get less than one per cent of my income from streaming and that revenue can take up to a year to actually arrive. The whole thing is cloaked in secrecy, nobody knows what they’re going to get paid or when. I couldn’t rely on it for an income and loads of people in the music industry are in the same boat without the ability to fall back to live performing. It’s time to change all that.”

André Allen Anjos, better known as Grammy Award-winning artist RAC, recently distributed the world’s first full-length album via Ethereum blockchain. RAC is a member of Choon’s advisory board. He said: “I am in no doubt that Ethereum-powered decentralised applications will fundamentally change the music industry. The ability to try new models such as streaming as mining are baked into the system. The entire record contract can be codified and automatically pay out each participant. In the current system, it can take up to an entire year. It’s 2018, it’s about time the music industry caught up.

“I love all the tech behind it but most people won’t care about the decentralisation and cryptography. Fair reward for artists is what it comes down to, and I think people will be on board with that.”

Leveraging his own experience in music and applying insights from leading crypto-experts, Emery is launching this future-oriented platform to remove the industry’s unnecessary intermediaries, facilitate artist-to-fan interaction and allow artists to be compensated fairly. In an era when many have accepted the dismal state of the music industry, Choon is using the most potent and modern tools to transform it for the better.

Visit https://www.choon.co/ to see a live working demo of Choon in action and to find out more about Choon’s forthcoming token sale.