The Chainsmokers in 2015. Photo Credit: Love This City TV
The Chainsmokers have officially announced plans to give their “biggest fans” non-fungible tokens (NFTs) representing a portion of the recorded streaming royalties from their upcoming fourth album.
The New York City-based electronic duo unveiled their NFT project for So Far So Good, which is scheduled to debut tomorrow, via a newly published post on blockchain music-investment platform Royal.io. Nas, Kygo, and others joined The Chainsmokers (who also operate a venture fund) in supporting Royal’s $55 million Series A back in November of 2021.
And after touching upon the music industry’s lack of transparency, the perceived potential “of Web3 and many of the features of it like blockchain” to remedy this lack of transparency, and related investments, The Chainsmokers’ nearly 2,000-word-long message dives into the specifics of the NFT giveaway.
Members Alex Pall and Drew Taggart have partnered with Royal to mint 5,000 NFTs (called “limited digital assets” on Royal), the document explains, and these “tokens will include, among other perks, a right to a proportional collective of a 1% audio streaming royalty from all 13 songs on our finished album.”
(The Chainsmokers “have gathered email addresses from over 30,000 of our biggest fans via data on most frequent ticket buyers, our most prolific streamers, our Discord server,” and more, and “this group of fans are on our VIP list, and will have the first chance to redeem one of the tokens,” the post elaborates.)
“As a holder of one of these tokens, you will also be able to join a private Discord sub-channel with access to exclusive content, info, and us directly,” the text proceeds, identifying thereafter the act’s plans to spearhead “giveaways and surprises and priority access to tickets, merch, and events to support our community.”
At 3 PM PT on Tuesday, May 17th, 4,000 of the tokens will become available to those on the aforementioned VIP list, and at 5 PM PT, 700 more tokens will roll out both for VIPs and “general access.” The Chainsmokers are reserving the remaining 300 tokens for “friends, family, and fans so they can share in the community.”
On the resale front, the customary fee associated with offloading the NFTs will reach songwriters on So Far So Good, per the two-piece group, whose members “believe songwriters are underpaid.”
“We will not be taking a percentage of secondary sales. Instead, the 7.5% fee of every secondary sale will get distributed equally amongst 14 songwriters who wrote the album songs with us,” according to the multifaceted resource.
Lastly, regarding the NFTs’ fine print, it bears disclosing that the tokens “are being offered primarily for the experience and the creation of a community of fans.”
“It is also important to note that if you acquire one of the NFTs in the giveaway, you own the actual token,” clarifies the breakdown, “but not the intellectual property rights in the content, recordings, music, audio, materials, and/or images linked to or associated with the NFT, although for as long [as] you own such token you are granted a license to use and display the content, materials, and/or images linked to or associated with your NFT for your personal, non-commercial use.”
Earlier this week, Universal Music detailed plans to sell 10,000 NFTs for its Kingship digital group – though some evidence suggests that music NFTs, despite optimistic forecasts from certain professionals, could be poised to trend downward in terms of their sale prices and volume.