If you enjoy movies, music, paintings, cartoons, or video games, you know the power creators hold over us. Creators influence our lives through the music we listen to, the movies we watch, and the paintings we admire. However, for all the joy they bring us, creators face their own challenges. Whether it’s agencies, publishers, or other artists, they constantly face pressure that can influence their creations. One influence is money, as many creators struggle to make a livable income. Another massive influence is the platform they use. In our era, creators have little, if any, control over their content. YouTube, Twitter, producers, museums, and other large institutions currently own creators’ content and creations.

Web 3 gives power back to and returns ownership to the creators, changing the art industry for creators, collectors, and everyday consumers. The new Web will revolutionize the industry and give consumers the ability to invest in their favorite artists. This art revolution starts with ownership.

Many Creators Don’t Have Ownership of Their Creations

To understand the importance of ownership, you need to understand centralization. For example, Twitter is a centralized platform governed by one entity, Twitter. Creators do not own their content on Twitter. Twitter owns the placement of the writings, videos, ads, or anything else on their platform. A company with ownership of its platform looks like a free system. In practice, the company’s centralized power has negative consequences for creators. If the company wants to kick users out of its ecosystem, it can and will.

One glaring example of centralization is in the music industry. There might not be a single production company that rules over the industry with absolute authority, but collectively, they have a stranglehold on musicians. Musicians frequently don’t have ownership of their albums… their producing companies do. Famous musicians are just as prone to losing ownership of their songs as amateurs. One notable example is Taylor Swift.

Music Pieces

Taylor Swift recorded her first songs with her former label Big Machine Records. According to the contract terms, they maintained ownership of the original songs, but there was an out. Her contract allowed her to reproduce the songs in November of 2020. The allure of reproducing her music was simple: it allowed her to own 100% of those recordings. So she did, despite significant resistance to re-releasing music in the industry. The opposition came from the belief that re-released music is not received nearly as well as the original release. This belief made her detractors criticize her for making an unsound business decision.

Swift went on to prove that owning content is valuable. The single “Love Story” has over 30 million streams alone, contributing to her estimated well over $300 million net worth. The cherry on top of her musical success, the new contract she signed with Republic Records gives her a 50% royalty instead of 10-15%. There are massive returns to owning art and content, especially your own. Her story is one of many stories about musicians not having enough control of their music. Ownership is why the new internet is so game-changing for the industry.

Web 3 allows musicians to position their music as an NFT on the blockchain. NFT smart contracts guarantee ownership of the music that always ties back to them. This means musicians not named Taylor Swift could also keep ownership of their songs in label deals. If musicians chose to sell portions of ownership to buyers or trade portions to record labels, they would receive more financial compensation to artists for their work.

But we called Web 3 a revolution, and revolutions are all-encompassing events, so it’s not going to stop at improving just the music industry.

Fine Arts: Photos, Statues, Paintings, Drawings, Etc.

While record companies can be bad for musicians, art galleries and museums are even worse for artists. Musicians and writers profit from the performance of their work if it does well. For example, music on top of the charts and best-selling books financially benefits their creators. Yet, fine arts like paintings, drawings, or photos do not financially benefit their creator past the first sale. But their works do benefit vendors and auctioneers.

Collectors need a secure intermediary for art exchanges, and artists don’t own their pieces after the first sale. Galleries, museums, collectors, and other vendors can take advantage of the power gap to sell the same works for huge profits repeatedly, without artists ever seeing a dime.

Fine arts will benefit significantly from Web 3 in two main ways. First, artists can turn their art into NFTs, verifying their ownership and allowing them to earn royalties from their pieces. They could receive the royalties by assigning a smart contract to the work on the blockchain, guaranteeing that they see a fraction of every sale made on the chain. Through smart contracts, artists will earn money throughout their lives for each piece. Auctioneers also must give a portion of their profits back to the original artists.

Second, artists can get needed funding earlier and easier. They could sell portions of ownership in their NFT pieces, allowing prospective buyers to invest in the artist whether they had a massive or minuscule budget. As the artist and their pieces become more prominent, the artist and his investors profit significantly. This is only one way the NFT system opens the gates of the art market to entry-level consumers. As consumers are able to leap into the art market as they would the stock market, Web 3 will turn each artist into a legitimate business venture.

Not Enough Transparency in Art Pricing

The music industry has successfully made music available to everyone at a steady price that is open and transparent. Yet, the art market never followed suit as many art vendors and galleries are not likely to give you a direct price. Opaque prices take power away from artists and buyers and then give it to institutions like art vendors. Vague prices put financial pressure on beginners starting their collections or seasoned collectors trying to add upcoming talents to their collections. The financial pressure leaves both unlikely to take more risks.

Some cities like New York have regulations that are supposed to force art dealers to have transparent pricing, but these rules are often ignored. To prove it, regulating agents disguised themselves as normal citizens and began perusing several prominent art galleries. Then, they inquired about the prices of different pieces. The agents could never get a firm price. The new internet will open a gateway to the art world while relieving struggling artists who can’t get their pieces sold.

Web 3’s NFTs have exact prices in crypto rather than a vague “make an offer.” Collectors can then decide whether it’s worth collecting or not rather than shying away from lesser-known artists. Since collectors would be willing to take chances on lesser-known artists, artists with small audiences could gain notoriety. Even better, successful artists who became estranged after a few bad auctions could stage a comeback on Web 3 platforms.

By far, the most significant impact open and honest pricing will have is increasing the number of collectors. Ordinary people, who may have thought they could never afford beautiful works of art, will begin seeing art in their price range and jump on board.

As more people jump in, the fine arts could enjoy the same scalability writers and musicians enjoy now by creating their ecosystem. Artists could incorporate royalties within the art pieces, NFT ownership shares, or use a token system. Visitors could trade crypto to gain tokens which give entrance to a virtual gallery. As the ecosystem scales, artists’ and investors’ wealth grows.

Art Will Generate Value for Creators, Collectors, and Average Consumers

You may have noticed a pattern in the art industry. The pattern is that value comes from ownership. In Web 2, value is distributed to the centralized platform or institution that owns where the content is published.

But Web 3 releases the floodgates and allows everyone to own content, meaning value is distributed to everyone. Ordinary people could accidentally become early adopters of the next Picasso, whose art could sell for millions. Art adoption will become commonplace, building wealth for buyers who saw value early, the artists, and future owners. This process could repeat again and again ad infinitum until the last owner or owners decide they want to remain an owner.

In short, Web 3 will be a value-generating revolution, generating wealth even in places we can’t see yet. The idea that self-publishing writers could make significant money without the help of a substantial organization sounded ridiculous before Web 2. Artists and art collectors are poised to make the same leap in Web 3.

If you want to learn more about where to buy art pieces and how to take advantage, attend W3BX with us from October 10-13. A panel of experts will discuss NFTs, investing opportunities, and more. At W3BX, you can ride the Web 3 wave early to get a first mover advantage. Get your tickets before we sell out!