Tokenizing Music: A Marketplace for NFT-Based Ownership and Royalties

Overview

As musicians seek new ways to monetize their work and build direct relationships with fans, blockchain offers an unprecedented solution: music as a tradable digital asset. A media-tech company partnered with Infinity Technologies to build a dedicated NFT marketplace for music, allowing artists to mint songs or albums as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — giving buyers partial ownership, licensing rights, or even streaming royalties.

The goal was to shift value away from intermediaries and toward creators and collectors, enabling new revenue streams, enhanced fan engagement, and transparent tracking of rights and earnings.

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Business Challenge

Traditional music distribution systems are centralized, opaque, and slow to reward artists. Revenue passes through multiple intermediaries — from labels and publishers to aggregators and platforms — before reaching the creator. Furthermore, fans who invest time and money into music have no way to own or benefit from the value they help create.

The client sought to change this by launching a blockchain-native marketplace where:

• Artists can mint and sell limited-edition or open-run music NFTs
• Buyers can access perks (e.g. backstage access, royalties, licenses) tied to NFTs
• All ownership, resale, and royalty distribution are handled by smart contracts
• The system could integrate with streaming platforms and track secondary sales

This required a secure, intuitive platform built around creator-first economics and verifiable ownership.

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Our Solution

Infinity Technologies developed a music NFT marketplace platform where artists can tokenize their tracks, albums, or compositions and distribute them directly to fans and collectors. Every NFT is embedded with on-chain metadata that defines the rights attached — such as streaming access, licensing permissions, or profit-sharing terms.

Buyers, in turn, receive a digital collectible that can be stored, traded, or held for exclusive rewards — creating a new layer of fandom and investment in the music economy.

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Key Features

NFT Minting & Distribution

• Artists upload audio files and related artwork (e.g. cover art, lyrics)
• They define the number of editions, pricing, unlockable content, and rights
• Smart contracts automatically enforce royalty splits, resale fees, and usage permissions
• NFTs are minted as ERC-721 tokens with media stored on IPFS

Marketplace Functionality

• Users browse music by genre, artist, popularity, or exclusivity
• NFTs can be purchased via the platform’s native token or common cryptocurrencies
• Secondary market enables resale, with embedded royalties returning to the original artist
• Collectors view their library, rights metadata, and sales history

Artist & Collector Dashboards

• Artists monitor earnings, NFT status, and fan engagement
• Collectors manage holdings, claim royalty payouts (where applicable), and receive exclusive content

Streaming & Licensing Integration

• API hooks allow NFTs to unlock tracks on integrated streaming platforms
• Licensing NFTs include metadata for sync rights, commercial usage, or limited-term leasing
• Royalty-bearing NFTs can link to off-chain oracles for revenue tracking and payouts

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Technology Stack

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Results & Impact

The platform launched with a curated selection of independent musicians and quickly gained momentum:

• Over 1,500 NFTs minted in the first month
• 65% of drops sold out within 48 hours
• Artists reported earning 3–5x more per fan compared to traditional platforms
• Fans demonstrated higher engagement, with NFT holders returning more often and sharing tracks virally
• Secondary market activity generated ongoing royalty revenue for original creators

The platform attracted attention from music collectives, indie labels, and sync licensing agencies looking to expand their artist monetization tools.

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Conclusion

Infinity Technologies delivered a powerful NFT-based music platform that empowers creators to monetize directly, control their intellectual property, and build communities of true ownership. By transforming songs into programmable digital assets, this solution offers a new economic model for music — one built on transparency, participation, and decentralized value exchange.

This project demonstrates our ability to combine Web3 infrastructure, smart contract engineering, and platform UX to reimagine creative industry monetization.

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