Talking about nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in the music industry usually means protecting artists’ copyrights and diversifying their revenue streams, preserving artworks on the blockchain, musicians collaborating with brands and artists, printing event tickets, giving exclusive bonuses to fans in this unique digital format or engaging with a community. So, why not do what the sports industry has done (and quite successfully so) with the NFT memorabilia format?
The sports memorabilia market reached $2.6 billion in 2022 and is expected to hit $227.2 billion in 10 years. The collectibles include sports trading cards, video clips of popular moments in the history of sports, autographs, accessories, and many other things that can be in both physical and digital formats. The same can be said for music memorabilia with rare vintage photos that already exist, sometimes only in unknown archives that are hard to access.
Unique classic rock history moments
This was the case with Legends of Rock, which was acquired by Globe Entertainment and Media back in 2020. The collection, which had been owned by British photo agencies and archives for decades, was then shipped to Las Vegas. Packed in standard postal containers, it looked unlikely to contain anything of high value or importance.
It was a total surprise for Klaus Moeller, CEO of Globe Entertainment and Media, to find some 8 million vintage, never-before-seen photos of the biggest rock stars — Queen, Deep Purple, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, The Police, Bruce Springsteen, Nirvana, The Who and many more. The pictures were taken on stage and during other official moments, but also backstage in a more relaxed atmosphere. The photos were made between the 1960s and the early 1980s, with some artists already in the spotlight and others just beginning their prolific careers. “It’s never-ending. Every day we’re finding the craziest stuff,” said Moeller about the archive.
To make the collection accessible worldwide, Globe Entertainment and Media partnered with MADworld, an innovative Web3 and digital asset ecosystem backed by Animoca Brands.
Moeller said:
“We could not have found a better partner than MADworld to introduce these unique, pivotal moments from music history to a new generation of fans. This collaboration is helping us breathe new life to these legends of music’s past by onboarding them onto Web3.”
Along with the physical slides, a professional-quality, high-resolution digital image of the original slides is provided to the buyer as a digital Certificate of Authenticity (COA) NFT. This helps prove ownership and guarantees authenticity. In addition, in the event of a future secondary sale, it allows the buyer to conveniently and securely transfer ownership.
Phillip Tran, chief marketing officer of MADworld, said:
“We are thrilled to be part of this exciting project. A global audience of music lovers, collectors and investors will now be able to use a secure, digital COA to verify each slide’s provenance through blockchain technology to simplify the authentication process and protect collectors from forgeries.”
Join the latest Cointelegraph AMA with the Legends of Rock
Want to learn more about Legends of Rock, NFTs and real-world memorabilia? Join the live discussion with Peter Laverick, the head of Legends of Rock, on May 3 at 2:00 pm UTC on Cointelegraph’s YouTube channel.
Topics that will be covered:
- The history of Legends of Rock, archival rarities.
- Collecting memorabilia — measuring rarity, advice for collectors, nuances of collecting music memorabilia.
- Music NFTs and the changes needed to make them mainstream.
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