Roblox settles $200 million copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), with a new partnership for musicians and songwriters to monetize their music in the metaverse.
The settlement allows Roblox to broker more agreements with NMPA members on "an industry-wide opt-in" basis. The NMPA is century-old organization that represents music publishers and songwriters like Ariana Grande, Imagine Dragons, deadmau5, among others. This deal will allow a negotiating period for publishers to work out individual licensing contracts with Roblox.
On September 24th, Roblox debuted a new venture in its metaverse, Listening Party, where "artists [will] premiere a new album in select top experiences giving them access to millions of fans who can listen to their music while they play and hang out with their friends." This new experience alongside their virtual concerts and Launch Party further expands their strategy to integrate music into the global Roblox community of over 48 million daily users.
In July, Roblox signed a deal with Sony Music Entertainment to offer new commercial opportunities for Sony artists to reach new audiences and generate new revenue streams around virtual entertainment. Sony's Lil Nas X virtual concert in November drew 33 million views. Roblox has a licensing deal with APM Music which has a catalogue of over 820,000 tracks featuring international artists from a broad range of genres. Earlier this year, Roblox debuted as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange. Its IPO was partly funded with $520 million from music industry titan, Warner Music Group. In September, Warner duo, Twenty One Pilots played their first tour in two years, with the opener in Roblox, playing a five-song set as avatars.
A presence in the virtual universe is now a necessity for publishers, songwriters, artists and labels. As major labels plot their descent into the metaverse, how will independent and unsigned musicians and songwriters create opportunities to monetize this new virtual realm of revenue? An example of one unsigned artist using innovative methods to monetize music is Brooklyn-bred emcee, LATASHÁ. In one day, she earned 10.3 ETH (about $30,000 on 9/24/21) through selling a music video as a NFT. Spotify pays about $0.04 per 10 streams. So, 1000 streams would be around $4, and 100,000 streams would be $400. The music use case for NFTs and has the potential to level out the playing field for musicians to earn substantial profits from their craft without middlemen pick-pocketing cuts.
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