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Fair rewarding mechanism in music industry using smart contracts on public-permissionless blockchain

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Abstract

We develop smart contracts on public-permissionless blockchain to protect the music industry from the consequences of illegal downloading of copyright-protected music files. We develop a decentralized music file-sharing platform, where music file owners can upload the music files, and music file requesters can download the music files. We also establish a fair rewarding mechanism for the music industry for the benefit of music file owners, where music files can be traded through smart contracts between the music file owners and file requesters. Further, we implement a penalty scheme to avoid malicious and illegal music file resources to be added to the community network. This approach is ideal for addressing the problem of illegal distribution of copyright-protected music files without the consent of the owners, which has negative consequences in the music industry. This model considers a community of people networked together, where music file owners can upload their music files to a community network server on approval of the majority of the community and the file requesters can request a paid download from the community network. Music file uploading and downloading transactions are voted and signed by the online community members. All parties are rewarded with an incentive fee per valid transaction. Transactions are handled through self-executing smart contracts. This model further analyzes the costs incurred in music file uploading and downloading transactions based on the uploading/downloading cost, the transaction fee and the networking cost. Perceiving the significance of the smart contract in the music industry, we determine that the effect of illegal downloading of copyright-protected music files can be reduced. We also emphasize the challenges associated with the adoption of the smart contract. Since blockchain interoperability is yet an issue, migrating applications in a heterogeneous network or between platforms can be costly and tedious, which should be further explored in the future. Adapting the proposed architecture for private-permissioned blockchain (Hyperledger Fabric and Libra by Facebook, R3 Corda) and could be a natural extension of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Parkville, Australia

    Malka N. Halgamuge

  2. Nikee Business Group, VIC 3000, Melbourne, Australia

    Dilmi Guruge

Authors
  1. Malka N. Halgamuge
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  2. Dilmi Guruge
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Correspondence to Malka N. Halgamuge.

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Malka N. Halgamuge is a Senior Member of IEEE

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Halgamuge, M.N., Guruge, D. Fair rewarding mechanism in music industry using smart contracts on public-permissionless blockchain. Multimed Tools Appl 81, 1523–1544 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-021-11078-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-021-11078-6

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