Today, URights, a subsidiary of French music rights company Sacem, launched Musicstart to enable musicians to protect their rights using blockchain.

The Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SACEM), like professional bodies in other countries, brings together musicians and clients who want to use their music, providing a platform for collecting royalties. It is similar to PRS in the UK and ASCAP in the US.

At this stage, Musicstart does not provide a royalty mechanism. Instead, it provides intellectual property rights (IP) protection by registering a piece of music on a blockchain and providing it with a timestamp. In the IP industry, it is called priority setting. If someone else later copies a tune, the original creator can prove that he was the first.

It is not specifically aimed at Sacem members. URights says that it is equally applicable to novices, experts and bedroom producers, and those who are not yet members of Sacem. The barrier to entry is low, costing €3.99 for a one-time protection for a single file or a monthly subscription of €4.99 for unlimited files.

He chose the Tezos blockchain because it uses an environmentally friendly proof of stake (PoS), although Ethereum is now PoS but has higher transaction costs.

“Today, when new challenges arise with the irruption of uses such as NFTs and the metaverse, and challenges related to the transparency and traceability of works persist, Sacem provides this new response to the essential question of the protection of works, especially for creators who are starting their careers”, said Cécile Rap-Veber, CEO of Sacem.

The offering is part of URights, an online music platform launched in 2017 that Sacem developed in partnership with IBM under a ten-year co-management agreement.

Some musicians are making the leap to publishing their own music as NFTs through platforms like Audius. And major record companies are entering the NFT sector, with multiple bands being created around the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. But perhaps the biggest opportunity is for metaverse-based live events.