Music Related DAOs – What’s Out There?

As we enter the realm of 2023, the popularity and the widespread adoption of NFTs is increasingly underway. Decentralization has taking the creative arts by storm as the number of blockchain based projects within the music industry continues to grow at a rapid pace. As a result we have seen an unprecedented amount of innovation within the token ecosystem and DAOs serve as a perfect example of the resulting metamorphasis.

What Are DAOs?

DAO stands for a “Decentralised Autonomous Organisation” but what does it actually mean and represent? The easiest way to view it is to look at DAOs as internet communities with a shared goal and a shared bank account. They represent places where like minded individuals come together and pool resources, talent and vision to construct a sustainable community where token holders can participate in the DAOs cultural, organizational and financial growth. In other words, DAOs represent a new type of corporate structure that utilizes blockchain and where the emphasis lies on individual contribution as opposed to the amount of capital you might have invested. As the protocol through which individuals are rewarded is specified in code and is enforced by blockchain, DAOs are essentially communities of people working towards a shared goal that are run as a decentralized and autonomous businesses. The future has well and truly arrived, so check out this list of the most famous and active music DAOs out there.

Dreams Never Die

Dreams Never Die is a DAO record label that aims to build financial sustainability around brand new artists and create an aligned community that participates in discovering, developing, distributing and promoting the growing roster. They want to address the problems of artist attribution and eliminate the exploitative practices surrounding artist payouts by providing a community based platform that acts as a record label in providing the token based funding and support needed during the early stages. This DAO is a perfect example of a community with a “shared bank account” where like minded individuals pool resources and talent and participate in the achievement of the DAOs objective.

Mudd DAO

Mudd DAO is a DAO that aims to create a decentralized community run record label with collaborative and generative music creation at the core of the idea. Currently it only represents the works of the independent musician Julian Mudd but plans are underway to start supporting more artists soon. The DAO operates by allowing artists to sell certain musical pieces or stems as NFTs, which then grants DAO community access to the collectors that have purchased it. The objective is to cultivate a community that is actively involved in contributing stems & little sound snippets in a collaboration that revolves around minted generative songs.

PHLOTE

PHLOTE is a music DAO that is fully built around its unique social token $PV1 that gives every DAO member a stake in its growth. Fans get rewarded in PV1 tokens for performing music curation work on the platform, such as scanning the music submissions and co-signing songs they like. The aim of the project is to make the platform curators into the owners and operators of the network, thus enabling the growth of a vibrant music community. The $PV1 token by itself is not available for purchase, and you can only acquire it by contributing to the curation work, co-signing, or by making a music submission.

SongADAO

SongADAO is a DAO which is run like a collective and focuses on NFT sales of a “Song of a Day” that gets updated daily. The songs and the corresponding artwork and videography are sold as NFTs but the members of the DAO also get paid to complete certain tasks for the organization, with members themselves picking what work gets rewarded most. The DAO owns 100% of rights to and revenues from all of the Song a Day songs, and members collectively decide how to use these rights and revenues to grow the value of the DAO’s catalog.

Ampled DAO

Ampled DAO should be viewed as a community operated and supported music platform. The way it works is that artists can post demos, exclusive merch, unreleased works or fresh announcements, and it automatically notifies all of their followers. AMPLED members need to pay a 3$ monthly fee to get access to the platform which in turn provides the DAO with the funds to support the artists that are part of the roster. There are currently 812 artists actively using the DAO.

Elektra DAO ( originating from Songcamp)

Elektra is a DAO focused on the development and distribution of the Elektra Story, Game, Music and Artwork – composed of creations from an 8-week songwriting and art creation camp called Songcamp. Songcamp featured musicians, visual artists, developers and strategists that produced an interactive world/story with music at its core. Which subsequently decided to use a DAO structure to market and distribute the fruits of their labor.

Good Karma Records

Good Karma Records is a DAO music record label that sells NFTs that in turn grant users the $KARMA token, which also gives buyers access to participate in the DAO’s decision making and operational process. The NFT also unlocks token gated access to virtual and real world events, as well as early exposure to artist’s unreleased music. In addition, members of the DAO choose and vote on what artists the label signs, as well as having the general control of the label’s day to day operations and management of finances involved. Fundamentally, the aim of the record label is to continue finding new ways to provide funding and support for artists, while also increasing the value of their $KARMA token.

Holly+

Holly+ is where the world of DAOs gets even more interesting. Holly Herndon is a musician and a specialist in the field of machine learning and the human voice. She has launched Holly+ – a tool that allows collectors to make AI generated artwork with a snippet of her voice, as well as distributing ownership of her digital likeness through a creation of a DAO. An ERC-20 VOICE token is used to represent voting shares within the organization, and the way it works is that artists producing songs with the Holly+ voice model automatically submit the song as a proposal to the Holly+ DAO, which consequently leads to the voting process by the DAO’s $VOICE token holders. The best artworks and license opportunities are approved by the DAO members, while the profit from these works is shared among the artists that used the tool, the DAO members, and Holly herself.

RAC

RAC is another example of a direct-to-fan DAO that represents the creative works of Grammy winning musician, RAC. Upon buying a $RAC social token users get access to exclusive unreleased music playlists and a portal to a Decentraland experience available for token holders only. The token acquisition works in a way that RAC Patreon subscribers can claim $RAC tokens each month proportional to their Patreon membership tier.

MODA DAO

MODA DAO is an industry facing DAO that is looking to improve music metadata and provides tooling for creators and developers within this field. The songs released with MODA are sold as NFTs and token holders in turn get exposure to the DAO ecosystem by distributing the revenue between the artists, the reward pool and token buybacks. They are creating a publishing ecosystem for the music industry of the future, as well as providing tools that will help drive progress in the web3 world, with their mission being about a facilitation of transition into Music3.

There you have it, a comprehensive list of the best music DAOs operating in the space today. Each providing its own masterstroke of innovation within a brand new sector of the industry. So, sharpen up the musicians tool set, pick a DAO, and get creating!

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*All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFT Plazas are from the personal research and experience of our site moderators and are intended as educational material only. Individuals are required to fully research any product prior to making any kind of investment.

Music data strategist and a music artist. One of the co-founders of the IMA data analytics startup, concerned with identifying trends and spreading awareness about the web3 transition in music.