As seen in Guitar Girl Magazine Issue 18 Winter 2021 – Women in the Music Industry
With NFTs all the craze, TuneGo recently partnered with Dapper Labs to launch the TuneGoNFT marketplace platform on Flow blockchain, allowing creatives to secure music and digital media, protect creative rights, and collect royalties. If you’re not familiar with the term NFT, do a Google search for non-fungible tokens, and you will come up with thousands of articles and images, the most popular being an image by the artist Beeple, which sold for a whopping $69 million at Christie’s.
In a recent press release, it was announced that this platform “enables artists to secure their content, protect their creative rights, mint NFTs, distribute their music to streaming platforms, monetize their music on social media, and license their content for TV, films, and video games—all on one unified platform.”
“We are passionately committed to the creative community. The patented TuneGO Vault is the world’s most robust platform for content security and creative rights protection,” said John Kohl, Co-Founder and CEO of TuneGO. “The Flow blockchain is the world’s premier blockchain for NFTs. We believe no one can match our platform’s seamless integration across the full supply chain of music, art, and entertainment.”
“The combination of the patented TuneGO Vault with the Flow blockchain offers both NFT creators and collectors a simplified, seamless platform for the transfer of NFT ownership rights,” said Alison Ball, President of TuneGO. “The entire NFT transaction history is secured on-chain with Flow and off-chain with TuneGO, which creates the world’s most transparent and secure platform for managing NFT creator and collector rights. We are incredibly proud to be transforming the music industry and the creative universe for the better in this way.”
Ball filled us in on her career, more about TuneGo, the NFT marketplace, and the rise of women in the entertainment industry.
You’ve had a long solid career in the entertainment arena. Would you please share with our readers a little about your background in the industry and your position with TuneGO?
I have been in the music industry my entire career. Previously, I was the Vice President of A&R at Warner Bros., where I supervised and controlled all creative and recording budgets—a cumulative budget of $40 million for a powerhouse roster that included multi-platinum recording artists Prince, Chaka Khan, and Curtis Mayfield. I also discovered, developed, and signed several new generation, multi-platinum artists, including the critically acclaimed and Grammy-nominated Eric Benet. Prior to Warner Bros., I worked at RCA, EMI, and CBS.
Now, as the President of TuneGO, I provide leadership, industry expertise, and strategic vision for the platform. I help bridge the gap between the music business and the technology world, making sure the tech is simple and provides everything an artist would need to create music, and now, mint NFTs. I also still help discover and develop talent and bring them onto the platform.
I ultimately help simplify the business of music.
Tell us about TuneGO and what sets the company apart from its competitors.
We like to refer to TuneGO as “A Record Label In A Box.” We are leveling the playing field in the music industry by streamlining content and music rights management, creative collaboration, distribution, licensing, and promotion on a single unified digital platform, enabling artists and creatives to focus on what they do best—making music.
What sets TuneGO apart from our competitors is our patented technology. The TuneGO Vault stores a complete, permanent digital record of the music creation process in the cloud, essentially digitizing an artist’s catalog while protecting creative rights throughout their career.
And now, with TuneGONFT, this first-of-its-kind solution enables artists to secure their content, protect their creative rights, mint NFTs, distribute their music to streaming platforms, monetize their music on social media, and license their content for TV, films, and video games—all on one unified platform.
TuneGO recently chose Flow to launch TuneGONFT™, a next-generation non-fungible token (NFT) Marketplace for the creative community, powered by the patented TuneGO Vault™. What was it about Flow that attracted TuneGO to its platform, and how will this technology benefit creatives?
Flow is incredible. The Flow blockchain is the world’s premier blockchain for NFTs. When Flow was first launched, they had a different way of working, ultimately cutting down the cost and making it greener and more sustainable for the environment.
The combination of the TuneGO Vault with the Flow blockchain offers both NFT creators and collectors a simplified, seamless platform for the transfer of NFT ownership rights. We have created the world’s most transparent and secure platform for managing NFT creator and collector rights.
The NFT marketplace has notably been male-dominated but has recently seen efforts by women creatives and business leaders to create NFTs supporting women’s empowerment, most notably Boss Beauties. As an outlet that supports empowering women musicians, we hope this trend continues. Has TuneGO seen a rise in women getting involved in the NFT marketplace?
Absolutely! I think the music business as a whole has been very male-dominated until recently. Now when you look at record companies and technology companies, you see more and more women stepping into leadership roles. With the NFT marketplace being a new category, women have an immense opportunity to lead the charge here. I am so excited for where this industry is headed.
Based on your success, what advice would you offer a young woman wanting to work in the entertainment industry?
Go full force after your dream but be sure to have a plan in place. It is okay to start small; in fact, it’s those steppingstones and skills acquired that will lead you to success. After college, I started out as a secretary in the music industry and worked my way up to president. I took small steps, absorbed everything, set a timeline for myself, and used all that knowledge to get me to where I am today.
I would also say it is important to surround yourself with a supportive team—a team that respects and encourages each other. At the end of the day, teamwork makes the dream work.
Additional TuneGONFT features include:
- Creative Rights Ownership Consensus: The average hit song today has 4+ songwriters and 6 publishers—and therefore, there are at least 10 creative rights owners for each individual song. The patented TuneGO Vault requires all copyright owners, songwriters, and publishers to review and approve the creative rights prior to the minting of the NFT, ensuring creative rights protection for artists that prevents royalty disputes going forward.
- Environmentally Safe & Energy Efficient Technology: Flow is a proof-of-stake blockchain that consumes thousands of times less energy than Ethereum and other traditional proof-of-work blockchains. This makes TuneGONFT one of the most advanced and environmentally friendly technology solutions for content security, creative rights protection, and equitable royalty collection.
- An End-to-End Ecosystem for Creating & Distributing Content: All TuneGO users, even those who do not utilize NFTs, can secure their content and protect their creative rights in the patented TuneGO Vault; distribute music to major streaming platforms (such as Spotify, Apple, and Amazon); monetize music and artwork on social media platforms (such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook); and license music and artwork for feature films, TV projects, and video games—all on one unified platform.
