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As a fan, you should be able to stake capital into a music artist that gives them a new way to raise it by sharing success with you.

This is a foregone conclusion.

So, I patented the process to make it happen faster.

Builders are now able to immediately use this process in web3 music applications.

Let’s see a simplified brief on the patent before we go into the story of its development and more detail on what it is, what it is not and what it is for.

BRIEF

NFTs are used to crowdfund for a group of artists. The capital is used to generate a net-new revenue stream apportioned to artists based on their success relative to the group. Artists share this revenue with their fans.

Now, onto the story…

IMPETUS

The arts have always been a formative part of my identity. I took art classes after my twin started piano lessons when we were about seven, but I didn’t pick up music until one of my best childhood friends convinced me to take guitar lessons with him a few years later. He’s been playing professionally in bands ever since, and asked me for financial support in 2017.

I was terribly conflicted. A donation was one thing, but I wanted to invest a sizable amount akin to an equity angel investment in a startup. I explained my hesitations knowing he didn’t yet have the proper legal framework setup to accept it. He understood, and was appreciative of a cash donation I sent to support his creative journey.

Even so, I felt we were both robbed of a positive sum opportunity. This was a big problem, so I began drafting a business method to fix it. Solving it was never far from my mind. I was constantly updating my draft and sending scratch notes to myself.

CRYPTO

Later that year I added hundreds of cryptocurrencies to my investment portfolio. I took particular note of capital raised via Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). At the same time, I was keen to track the Supreme Court’s landmark case on overturning the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) to legalize sports betting. I sensed PASPA would be overturned, and knew a flurry of creative skill-based fantasy sports models would flourish if it was. So I continued tweaking the draft of my model to incorporate unconventional, skill-based approaches. The itch was incessant, often waking me up at night to jot more notes.

VEZT

PASPA was overturned almost a year later, in May of 2018. My obsession was unrelenting, so I decided to dedicate material time into deeper education to transition my career into the music industry. My research led me to Vezt who were exploring intriguing models in the music industry. I reached out to join their team.

I was ultimately offered the role.

We had a mutually beneficial evaluation and I was deeply appreciative, but never took the Vezt offer. I became resolute in my journey to finalize my model.

NBA TOP SHOT

I knew there was a key piece to my puzzle missing, but my gut told me the answer was hidden somewhere at the cutting edge of blockchain technology. So I honed my research deeper into the blockchain over the two years that followed until an email from The Hustle landed in my inbox.

One of my fondest childhood memories was my Dad signing me up for an Air Jordan Flight Club membership and I’ve always collected sports cards, so the NBA Top Shot model made sense to me immediately. I had actually just purchased a Jordan 86’ Fleer a few months prior.

So the moment NBA Top Shot accepted me as one of the first few thousand users into their closed beta, I purchased a $49 LeBron moment.

Watching that $49 moment appreciate to $110,623 was exhilarating, but the aha moment I had immediately after purchasing it got me even more excited. NFTs were the final piece to my model’s puzzle. Days later I finally had a more cohesive thesis for my draft:

“NFTs will be the catalyst that drives the most disruptive, revolutionary changes to upend the music industry since music streaming began.”

I hadn’t been so sure of anything since a similar epiphany I had in 2007.

ZAGSTER

My college roommate and I saw the world’s first large-scale, automated bike share system launch in Paris in 2007. We knew it would take the world by storm. We quit everything to bet the farm on it and Co-Founded a bike sharing company - Zagster - later that year. The rest of the world needed micromobility systems, but cities were in dire need of revenue streams from them, to make them sustainable. So one of our earliest business models was predicated on turning bike rides into cash through a carbon offset credit methodology I was authoring. The resemblance of our carbon credit symbol to bitcoin in this explainer video is an uncanny coincidence (I wish we knew about tokens back then).

After over three years of extremely stringent review and fine-tuning (mirroring that of a patent approval process), the United Nations approved our methodology in 2011. Zagster officially held the world’s first carbon credit financing methodology for micromobility.

The approval catapulted us from seed to venture funding, leading to acceptance into Techstars which ultimately led us to hundreds of employees, 250+ micromobility programs (bikes and scooters) across 35 states, $40M+ raised and our acquisition event about ten years later. Our methodology made bike sharing happen faster. All this to say, it’s been yet another decade since I’ve been so sure of a solution (web3 music capital distribution) to such an impactful worldwide problem...

I haven’t had more conviction of a concept being a foregone conclusion since co-founding my bike sharing company back in 2007.

PATENT

Words can’t describe the joy of an aha moment like the one I had in 2007 after seeing bike sharing and the one I had for web3 music capital distribution after seeing NBA Top Shot over a decade later. NFTs really were the missing link. I sensed artificial intelligence would have a profound impact on many industries in general in the long-term, but knew NFTs were more specifically the keys to unlocking new ways of financing to disrupt the music industry in the nearer-term.

So with my thesis finally at hand, I restlessly finalized my draft and filed it as a provisional patent on April 5, 2021. I then sourced a top-notch attorney (Paul Novak) through my beloved Water and Music community and the two of us went through about two more years of exhaustive USPTO examination, debate and review.

I’m ecstatic to announce that as of the day of this post being released, my patent (U.S. Patent No. 11,620,649) has been officially approved and issued.

That’s the story on how we got here!

So now let’s detail what the patent is, what it is not and close by looking to the future on what it is for.

WHAT IT IS

Inventions that qualify for a utility patent are generally grouped into five categories: a process, a machine, a manufacture, a composition of matter or an improvement of an existing idea. My patent embodies systems and methods of using the blockchain to allow music artists to raise and distribute capital i.e. a process. Of course the patent lives for 20 years from April 5, 2021 as the source of truth, so expanding on it in this post won’t limit the claims of it. However, given the limited scope of this post we’ll sum up the key steps of the process briefly for illustration purposes:

1. CREATE a collection of NFTs.

2. ASSIGN each NFT to any unique artist and song combination, and an owner.

3. MONITOR the performance of each unique artist, and song.

4. CALCULATE an artist score and a song score.

5. DISTRIBUTE capital to artists and owners.

6. REPEAT.

If this sounds simple, good. The strongest patents are those that are most simple and broad. Let’s expand on the intended application of the process a bit for further illustrative purposes:

1. CREATE a collection of NFTs within the system.

2. ASSIGN each NFT to any unique artist and song combination (with their permission) and owner (in exchange for capital).

3. MONITOR the performance of each unique artist, and song for a discrete period of time (e.g. one month).

4. CALCULATE an artist score for each artist and a song score for each song based on their performance during the discrete period of time.

5. DISTRIBUTE (a net-new channel of) capital to artists and owners based on the ranked artist scores and the song scores for the discrete period of time.

6. REPEAT the necessary steps for subsequent, discrete periods of time.

Finally, let’s just call out five key themes throughout the 85 sections of the patent specification to expand on intended applications of the system:

• The artist and owner as potentially being the same entity; see [4.58], [10.6], [15.52], etc.

• Artist participation as being in partnership, post opt-in consent; see [2.31], [9.7-9.39], [10.6-10.40], [14.41], etc.

• Performance as being attributed to an artist's holistic success (not just that from an individual song), factoring in both web2 and web3 activity; see [6.3], [15.11], etc.

• Capital obtained i.e. raised in exchange for ownership of each NFT as (also) being made exclusively available to artists; see [2.31], [8.47], [12.15], [13.9], etc.

• The system as being agnostic, autonomous and self-sustaining with net-new capital mechanisms as being non-dilutive to and non-affiliated with artist intellectual property by default (e.g. existing copyright royalties), yet interoperable in harmony with other systems across the web3 ecosystem, ensuring artist self-sovereignty; see [6.49], [11.51], [13.62-14.40], etc.

Put simply, NFTs are used to crowdfund for a group of artists to generate a net-new revenue stream that artists and fans share.

I encourage all to read the patent in its entirety for a more comprehensive understanding on what it is.

WHAT IT IS NOT

After several years of deep research through the patent and web3 music ecosystems, I’ve remained mindful of related controversies and stigmas that challenge the good intentions of the web3 ethos my patent was built on. Due to the limited scope of this post, let’s just get ahead of five items to candidly express what this patent is not. This patent is:

• NOT for trolling.

• NOT for stymying progression or innovation.

• NOT a HitPiece.

• NOT for monopolizing or for exploitation to get money.

• NOT a definitive business plan or model.

To add on to this last item, although SEC and legal considerations are discussed through the specification of the patent, a purpose of the patent is NOT to present a perfected business model that specifically addresses fluid SEC, etc. considerations; but to rather serve as a more general framework to reference while remaining mindful of such considerations.

While out of scope for this post, a topic of a future post may be a detailed walk-through of a business model application that puts the framework of this patent into practice.

WHAT IT IS FOR

The overarching purpose of this patent is to expedite the realization of systems and methods of using the blockchain to allow music artists to raise and distribute capital with fans.

That is the single most important objective.

So, this patent serves as a framework for builders to immediately use in new and existing web3 music applications.

It’s not a matter of if this will happen or who will leverage this patent to do it, but rather just a question of when. Patents shorten the timeline. They stimulate innovation and were incorporated into the U.S. Constitution by 1790 for good reason. I’m a staunch supporter.

My secondary, personal intentions behind what the patent is for are more nuanced, and should never undermine this primary objective. So while the impetus of my story described here has remained a through-line over the 5+ years of development, let me remain just as candid by expressing five other personal motives that have fueled me. For me personally, this patent is for:

• Nurturing my enjoyment in being completely consumed in the engineering of a meticulous business process that solves a worldwide problem with social impact.

• Improving the odds of me being in the conversation with web3 music initiatives that incorporate innovative capital distribution models; whether through a job or my own entrepreneurial endeavors.

• Being the sole inventor of an actual, officially issued patent (not a provisional patent).

• Validating my research and development over the past 5+ years.

• Transitioning my career into web3 music with this patent as leverage…

… because I yearn to return to my roots in being more involved in the arts using my business and product acumen, to empower artists to create more raw and true forms of it.

The improvements web3 will bring to industries like banking, government, agriculture, healthcare, etc. will result in profoundly deep societal impact. This is important and will take time. In the meantime, the opportunities web3 presents to the arts are immediately upon us and actionable. Realizing these opportunities should serve as a catalyst for other industries to follow.

Of all the arts, I believe the impact web3 will have on music will result in the most wide social reach. Most everybody can relate to music - it’s universal.

No matter where you are in the world and no matter your environment, if you’re fortunate enough to hear that one special song, the power it has to viscerally teleport you somewhere to a place of danceable joy is a very unique gift. Gifts from artists. Artists that need more capital. The arts make the world a better place. Especially music. I’m a big fan. I’m not the only one.

Soon, you’ll be able to get proof you staked capital into a music artist that gives them a new way to raise it by sharing success with you.

Stay tuned!

P.S. This post is my genesis NFT as 25 editions, collectable for free.