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Cybersecurity Research
  1. Part II
  2. 6 Motivation

Part II

Ricardian Contract

6 Motivation

More and more research is focusing on how Web3 technologies (with an emphasis on blockchain and smart contracts) can:

  • be applied to the music and legal industries, and

  • comport with existing legal frameworks and industry standards.

Most of this research focuses on possible Web3 technology use cases for cost-savings and disrupting the status quo, the new costs that arise with Web3 technologies, and what issues need to be addressed before Web3 technology use cases are feasible. However, there is not enough research on practical applications (e.g., Proof-of-Concepts (PoC)) of Web3 technologies beyond mentioning feasibility issues.

In Part II, we focus on a practical application of Web3 technologies to automate, wholly or partially, the music licensing process. Specifically, we seek to investigate the feasibility (and most importantly, the necessary know-how) of licensing musical works with Ricardian Contracts and Web3 technologies (RC-Web3 Templates). Through this report, we develop an understanding of the interdisciplinary and emerging eld of research spanning the legal, music, computer science and engineering disciplines centered on the intersection of music complexity and Web3 technologies, and how this interdisciplinary research eld can aid in addressing the various costs, issues and impairments to make RC-Web3 Templates feasible for automating the music licensing process.

Our understanding ultimately culminates with the development of the Practical Tokenized Drafting (PTD) method, a set of core principles and design practices for developing RC-Web3 Templates, and the Tokenized Music License (TML), a standard form for music licensing in a Web3 technologies context. We believe the development of the PTD method and the TML standard form contribute to this emerging eld of interdisciplinary research because it sheds a light on the feasibility and concerns of practical applications of Web3 technologies in the music industry from a legal perspective.

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