Journal articles on the topic 'Eng Middleham'

Recent historiography on the growth of periodical publishing has emphasized newspapers and journals as constituents of an emergent communications system in early modern Europe. This system comprised the newspapers, journals and other publications that contributed its content, and also the postal systems that were the principal method of distributing that content. This article describes how the growth of this system in central Europe was supported in large measure by financial incentives that it offered to both constituents. First, in contrast with postal systems in France and the UK, the Thurn und Taxis Reichspost inserted itself as a middleman in the sale of periodicals, which gave the Reichspost an incentive to promote the trade. Second, the financial conditions for periodical publication made their costs depend more heavily on costs that were scalable to circulation than is true today, which resulted in the viability of publications with a lower circulation. The same cost structure also made it possible for certain prominent periodicals of the era to earn considerable profits for their publishers, as illustrated in this article by Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung , which was published in Jena from 1785.

With increasing commercial air travel, there has also been an increase in passenger claims against airlines since EU Regulation 261 that grants passengers rights in case of cancellation, denied boarding and more recently also long delays, came into force. Business opportunities have arisen for lawyers and claim agencies who seek to assert rights on behalf of passengers for a fee. The price passengers pay however is to give up a hefty chunk of their compensation in exchange for such assistance. The practices of such claim agencies have been criticized by stakeholders in the aviation industry, one such criticism is their manner of remuneration because the compensation in a successful claim does not end up with the person who was granted rights by the Regulation: i.e. the passenger. It is in this respect that the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in the U.K., confirming that airlines may compensate passengers directly and cut out the ‘middleman’, was a helpful clarification on the manner of dealing with claim agencies. This article examines the decision itself and the repercussions from that decision, and whether it really is the end of the matter, and what airlines need to anticipate in the foreseeable future.

The shift of the forest management paradigm in Indonesia in this recent time has given more space for people that align with the Indonesian Government to elevate well-being at once to conserve forest through Social Forestry Program. One model group from 6.411 forest communities that manage forest is Forest Village Communuty or Lembaga Masyaraakat Desa Hutan (LMDH) of Rawa Sakti. This paper aims to describe the structure-process of social forestry program implementation in LMDH Rawa Sakti which uses access theory that is complemented by the collaborative approach. The qualitative approach with descriptive analysis in the case study is conducted through depth interviews (consist of the management and members of LMDH Rawa Sakti, middleman, village officer, and coffee entrepreneur), observation, and focus group discussion. The result shows that negotiation and social relation access is the essential access that can influence five other forms of SRAM by Theory of Access that need to be examined by the collaborative approach elements, especially at accountability, communication, involvement, and equity to identify elite capture. In the end, the elite capture causes a lack of contribution and cooperation as a group to achieve social forestry program goal.

While there has been a considerable research study into the causes and consequences of the 2011 riots and rioters' composition in terms of their class, ethnic origin and gender, there is much less on the shop-keepers perspectives on the August, 2011 riots in London. One of the consequence of this under-research area is little is known about how riots affect relationships between communities in multi-ethnic London. Based on forty interviews conducted with Kurdish and Turkish (KT) shop-owners and key persons from community organizations in North London, the findings of this study state that the theory of middleman minorities does not provide conceptual insight to explain the events. Rather, utilization of theory of framing sheds light upon the perceptions and actions of migrants from Turkey and inter-ethnic relationships in North London. This article argues that KT shopkeepers, community organizations and rioters managed to generate a shared consciousness during face-to-face encounters on the streets. The conscious efforts of shopkeepers and rioters constructed an interest alignment against government policy for cutting social programmes, economic deprivation, and police misconduct. To this end, members of ethnic groups prevented inter-ethnic conflict.

Abstract. Canopy radiative transfer is the primary mechanism by which models relate vegetation composition and state to the surface energy balance, which is important to light- and temperature-sensitive plant processes as well as understanding land–atmosphere feedbacks. In addition, certain parameters (e.g., specific leaf area, SLA) that have an outsized influence on vegetation model behavior can be constrained by observations of shortwave reflectance, thus reducing model predictive uncertainty. Importantly, calibrating against radiative transfer outputs allows models to directly use remote sensing reflectance products without relying on highly derived products (such as MODIS leaf area index) whose assumptions may be incompatible with the target vegetation model and whose uncertainties are usually not well quantified. Here, we created the EDR model by coupling the two-stream representation of canopy radiative transfer in the Ecosystem Demography model version 2 (ED2) with a leaf radiative transfer model (PROSPECT-5) and a simple soil reflectance model to predict full-range, high-spectral-resolution surface reflectance that is dependent on the underlying ED2 model state. We then calibrated this model against estimates of hemispherical reflectance (corrected for directional effects) from the NASA Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) and survey data from 54 temperate forest plots in the northeastern United States. The calibration significantly reduced uncertainty in model parameters related to leaf biochemistry and morphology and canopy structure for five plant functional types. Using a single common set of parameters across all sites, the calibrated model was able to accurately reproduce surface reflectance for sites with highly varied forest composition and structure. However, the calibrated model's predictions of leaf area index (LAI) were less robust, capturing only 46 % of the variability in the observations. Comparing the ED2 radiative transfer model with another two-stream soil–leaf–canopy radiative transfer model commonly used in remote sensing studies (PRO4SAIL) illustrated structural errors in the ED2 representation of direct radiation backscatter that resulted in systematic underestimation of reflectance. In addition, we also highlight that, to directly compare with a two-stream radiative transfer model like EDR, we had to perform an additional processing step to convert the directional reflectance estimates of AVIRIS to hemispherical reflectance (also known as “albedo”). In future work, we recommend that vegetation models add the capability to predict directional reflectance, to allow them to more directly assimilate a wide range of airborne and satellite reflectance products. We ultimately conclude that despite these challenges, using dynamic vegetation models to predict surface reflectance is a promising avenue for model calibration and validation using remote sensing data.

Abstract: The most common image taken in the medical field for diagnosis of any ailment affecting the chest is chest radiography (Chest X-ray). The most common image taken in the medical field for diagnosis of any ailment affecting the chest or neighboring area is chest radiography (Chest X-ray). The use of this approach has been limited due to a scarcity of qualified radiologists. To address this issue, we are developing a computer-aided diagnosis system for chest X-ray disease classification that employs DNN (Deep Neural Network) Transfer learning. CXE (Chest X-Ray Examiner) is a web-based program that works in conjunction with our machine learning console. The most common image taken in the medical field for diagnosis of any ailment affecting the chest is chest radiography (Chest X-ray). There is a Rest API application that serves as a middleman between our user interface and machine learning applications. We used our machine learning console application produced by ML.NET to train our own model using the Mobile.Net v3 Image categorization method. By obtaining X-Ray images from end users, the Chest X-Ray Examiner (CXE) can classify the chest disease name and forecast the accuracy level of that disease. Keywords: Chest X-ray, DNN, API, ML.NET, Chest X-Ray Examiner

Fishermen earn income from their fishing activities, but it depends on various factors such as the type of employment, either part-time or full-time. The aim of the study is to identify which criteria based on their experience affect the income of part-time and full-time fishermen in Bintulu, Sarawak, Malaysia. About 33 fishermen were interviewed in the Bintulu area using semi-structured interview questions. A qualitative method such as an in-depth interview was conducted and analysed, resulting in three criteria that affecting our participants’ income. The first criterion was self-learning process which significantly hampered their ability to identify fish population areas, especially without the aid of technology. In contrast, the second criterion was equipment ownership. The ownership offers advantages to the full-time fisherman to facilitate their fishing activity by catching more fish in a short period of time. The final criteria were end products related to their sales activities, whether through intermediary (middleman) or directly to consumers. Regardless of their mode of operation or experience, direct-to-consumer sales is an alternative to earn a higher income, except that their yield varies significantly through the first and second criteria. Therefore, this finding indicated that the income of part-time or full-time fishermen in Bintulu, Sarawak could be influenced by three criteria.

Aims: Advanced practice providers are a rapidly growing sector of the health-care field. Despite their relatively new place in the medical establishment, these providers are held to high standards of education, practice, and communication skills. However, the communication needs of these practitioners are somewhat different than those of nurses or physicians. These skills are even more necessary in specialized fields where providers frequently are involved in discussions of prognosis, goals of care, and end of life. Design: This was a mixed-methods study. Methods: We completed a needs assessment of communication skills for advanced practice providers at a large cancer center in the northeastern United States from June to July 2017. Results: Participants were confident in their skills across several areas of communication, but also endorsed the need for communication skills training, particularly for challenging interactions with patients and families. Advanced practice providers described many challenges similar to those descried by other health-care providers, including general communication skills problems, navigating team dynamics, and goals-of-care planning. However, participants also endorsed communication skills needs specific to their field, including certain patient-centered challenges, perceived/real limitations of their role, serving as the “middleman,” and understanding the advanced practice provider’s role. Conclusion: Given the general and unique communication challenges advanced practice providers in oncology face, we conclude with recommendations for further institutional and educational changes to better address these needs.

Meniere’s disease is chronic progressive disease with unclear idiopathic etiologyand symptomatic improvements with treatment. Objectives: To analyze the efficacy of lowdose intratympanic injection of gentamicin for vertigo control in unilateral Meniere’s disease.Study Design: Quasi experimental study. Settings: Department of ENT, PIMS, NESCOM &IMDC Islamabad. Materials & Methods: Gentamicin was used intra tympanically in thismulticentre study of 75 patients over a period of 8.5 years between 1st January 2005 to 30th June2013 in definite Meniere’s disease according to the 1995 Document of American academy ofotolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS).All these centers followed same criteriaand procedures. Single dose of 1 ml Gentamicin solution 40 mg/ml was instilled in the middleear through the grommet under microscope and followed up for 3 months and two years. Thestaging of disease (hearing thresholds) the degree of disability (frequency of attacks per month)and the functional level were assessed before and after treatment. Results: Among 75 patients,41 were female & 34 were males between age ranges of 25 to 70 years. Most of the patients inthe study had stage 2 (23/75) and stage 3 (41/75) Meniere’s disease. About 68(91%) patientswere having good control of vertigo at the end of two year of intratympanic gentamicin withoutany loss of hearing. Conclusion: A single Low dose intratympanic gentamicin is effective incontrolling vertigo in patients with Meniere’s disease with no further deterioration in hearing forat least two years follow up.

Abstract This research aims to find a legal certainty regarding liability of an intermediary trader towards final consumer. All of these times, there is a legal vacuum regarding the legal relationship which occurs between, sellers, intermediaries, and consumer. Acts No. 8 Year 1999 regarding Consumer Protection classifies intermediary traders, distributors, or agents as mere business actors and not distinguish the role of each of these intermediary parties. The method use for this scientific research is Normative Juridical. The researcher used Statutes Approach, Doctrinal Approach, and Case Approach. This paper will discuss about the legal vacuum which happened during Consumer Protection Law, regarding the relationship status of intermediary traders, there is no clear regulation surrounding the accountability of said middleman and its consumer. Furthermore, the paper will examine differences between various intermediary during the distribution process. The multitude number of intermediary traders has caused many branches of law relationships between intermediaries, businessman, and end consumer. From these relationships, this paper can further explain the type of liability that applies to each party. In conclusion, this research argues that responsibility between each party (producers, intermediary traders, and final consumers) are tiered and must be adjusted accordingly to its type of relationship and the transaction that has occurred. The final consumer cannot meddle or demand accountability from the intermediary trader, if the intermediary itself in the distribution channel only acts as a middleman. Business owners who own intermediary actors cannot resolve themselves from the liability of consumers, whereas the intermediary only acts for them.Keywords: consumer protection; intermediary trader; liabilityAbstrak Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan secara pasti tentang tanggung gugat perantara perdagangan kepada konsumen akhir. Selama ini terdapat kekosongan hukum mengenai hubungan hukum yang terjadi di antara penjual, perantara, dan konsumen. Undang-Undang No. 8 Tahun 1999 tentang Perlindungan Konsumen menggolongkan pedagang perantara, distributor atau agen sebagai pelaku usaha semata dan tidak membedakan kedudukan dari masing-masing para pihak perantara ini. Tipe penelitian ini menggunakan Yuridis Normatif. Metode penelitian menggunakan pendekatan Statutes Approach, Doctrinal Approach dan Case Approach. Penelitian ini pertama-tama membahas mengenai kekosongan hukum yang terjadi dalam UUPK mengenai status hubungan perantara perdagangan, belum adanya pengaturan mengenai tanggung gugat yang jelas bagi perantara perdagangan ini membawa kerugian bagi perantara perdagangan dan juga bagi konsumen akhir. Kemudian dilanjutkan dengan membahas mengenai berbagai macam jenis Pedagang perantara yang dikenal dalam jalur distribusi. Banyaknya jenis pedagang perantara ini juga melahirkan banyaknya jenis hubungan hukum yang terjadi di antara pedang perantara, pelaku usaha dan konsumen akhir. Dari jenis-jenis hubungan hukum yang tercipta maka barulah dapat di pahami mengenai jenis tanggung gugat yang berlaku bagi masing-masing pihak. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah bahwa tanggung jawab yang terjadi antara Produsen, pedagang perantara dan konsumen akhir adalah tanggung jawab berjenjang, yang harus disesuaikan dengan tipe dan jenis hubungan hukumnya dalam setiap transaksi yang terjadi. Konsumen akhir tidak bisa serta merta secara mutlak meminta pertanggung jawaban dari pedagang perantara apabila dalam jalur distribusi pedagangan perantara hanya bertindak sebagai perantara perdagangan. Pelaku usaha yang menggunakan jalur pedagang perantara tidak bisa membebaskan dirinya secara mutlak dari tanggung gugat kepada konsumen akhir, manakala pedagang perantara itu bertindak untuk dan atas nama pelaku usaha tersebut.

With the universality of dispersed computer, cellular cell cellphone can keep/get better individual facts from anywhere each time. As a prevent end cease result, the statistics protection hassle in flexible cloud seems to be more and more excessive and anticipates extra development of portable cloud. There are massive investigations which have been brought about decorate the cloud safety. All the same, the huge majority of them are not pertinent for mobile cloud considering the truth that cellular cellular telephone without a doubt have in fact constricted figuring belongings and energy. Arrangements with low computational expenses are in notable want for transportable cloud applications. In this paper, we endorse a slight-weight data sharing plan (LDSS) for mobile allotted computing. It welcomes CP-ABE, an access manage era accomplished in regular cloud hassle, however changes the shape of get get right of entry to to control tree to make it suitable for portable cloud conditions. LDSS relocates an expansive little littlelittle bit of the computational excessive gain get proper of get entry to toto manipulate tree modification in CP-ABE from cell cell phone to outdoor middleman internet servers. Furthermore, to decrease the purchaser repudiation fee, it acquaints building instance regions with actualize apathetic denial, this is an irritable hassle in software softwaresoftware program primarily based absolutely truly actually CP-ABE frameworks. The exploratory prevent consequences show off that LDSS can sufficiently lessen the fees at the cellular cell smartphone hassle at the same time as clients are sharing statistics in flexible cloud problems.

Security is crucial in the healthcare industry. Between 2012 and 2019, almost 179 million health records were exposed to data breaches. The intruders got into homes and companies to take credit card and banking information, as well as health and genetic research data. Blockchain is a fantastic technology for applications in the area of protection because it can keep an incorruptible, decentralized, and open record of all patient data. It is, nevertheless, secure and keeps any person's identity hidden. When dealing with decentralized technology, patients, doctors, and hospital personnel may all share the same information. On a blockchain, the cost of verifying a single transaction is negligible. You can audit a single piece of data in real time, and it's entirely visible to everyone. As a result, costless verification is economically possible. Recent audits of healthcare data, for example, have necessitated the time-consuming and costly examination of tiny units of transactions. This procedure had to be interrupted and redone on a frequent basis prior to blockchains in order to comply with regulations. Compared to traditional healthcare information management solutions, blockchain provides five potential benefits. Blockchains are ideal for decentralized administration applications, such as when hospitals, consumers, and payers want to work together without the need for a middleman. The second advantage of blockchains is that they may offer immutable archives of sensitive data, which makes them ideal for static databases (e.g., insurance claim records). Blockchains are very useful for tracing the origins and histories of digital artifacts (e.g., patient consent in clinical trials). According to cryptographic protocols, changing the ownership of an item can only be done by the person who owns it. Furthermore, the attributes' origins may be traced, making previously confirmed evidence considerably more reusable. The fourth advantage of blockchains is that they ensure the longevity, consistency, and accessibility of records. As a result, they're perfect for long-term records storage and availability (e.g., the electronic health records of patients). Patients' personal keys encrypt the data, which is only accessible with their consent, making it safer and more private. There is no method to access personal information even if the network is hacked by a hostile entity.

Introduction In a 2019 report for the International Journal of Communication, Baym et al. positioned distributed blockchain ledger technology, and what would subsequently be referred to as Web3, as a convening technology. Riffing off Barnett, a convening technology “initiates and serves as the focus of a conversation that can address issues far beyond what it may ultimately be able to address itself” (403). The case studies for the Baym et al. research—early, aspirant projects applying the blockchain concept to music publishing and distribution—are described in the piece as speculations or provocations concerning music’s commercial and social future. What is convened in this era (pre-2017 blockchain music discourse and practice) is the potential for change: a type of widespread, broadly discussed, reimagination of the 21st-century music industries, productive precisely because near-future applications suggest the realisation of what Baym et al. call dreams. In this article, we aim to examine the Web3 music field as it lies some years later. Taking the latter half of 2021 as our subject, we present a survey of where music then resided within Web3, focussing on how the dreams of Baym et al. have morphed and evolved, and materialised and declined, in the intervening years. By investigating the discourse and functionality of 2021’s current crop of music NFTs—just one thread of music Web3’s far-reaching aspiration, but a potent and accessible manifestation nonetheless—we can make a detailed analysis of concept-led application. Volatility remains throughout the broader sector, and all of the projects listed here could be read as conditionally short-term and untested, but what they represent is a series of clearly evolved case studies of the dream, rich precisely because of what is assumed and disregarded. WTF Is an NFT? Non-fungible tokens inscribe indelible, unique ledger entries on a blockchain, detailing ownership of, or rights associated with, assets that exist off-chain. Many NFTs take the form of an ERC-721 smart-contract that functions as an indivisible token on the Ethereum blockchain. Although all ERC-721 tokens are NFTs, the inverse is not true. Similar standards exist on other blockchains, and bridges allow these tokens to be created on alternative networks such as Polygon, Solana, WAX, Cardano and Tezos. The creation (minting) and transfer of ownership on the Ethereum network—by far the dominant chain—comes with a significant and volatile transaction cost, by way of gas fees. Thus, even a “free” transaction on the main NFT network requires a currency and time investment that far outweighs the everyday routines of fiat exchange. On a technical level, the original proposal for the ERC-721 standard refers to NFTs as deeds intended to represent ownership of digital and physical assets like houses, virtual collectibles, and negative value assets such as loans (Entriken et al.). The details of these assets can be encoded as metadata, such as the name and description of the asset including a URI that typically points to either a file somewhere on the Internet or a file hosted via IPFS, a decentralised peer-to-peer hosting network. As noted in the standard, while the data inscribed on-chain are immutable, the asset being referred to is not. Similarly, while each NFT is unique, multiple NFTs could, in theory, point to a single asset. In this respect ERC-721 tokens are different from cryptocurrencies and other tokens like stable-coins in that their value is often contingent on their accurate and ongoing association with assets outside of the blockchain on which they are traded. Further complicating matters, it is often unclear if and how NFTs confer ownership of digital assets with respect to legislative or common law. NFTs rarely include any information relating to licencing or rights transfer, and high-profile NFTs such as Bored Ape Yacht Club appear to be governed by licencing terms held off-chain (Bored Ape Yacht Club). Finally, while it is possible to inscribe any kind of data, including audio, into an NFT, the ERC-721 standard and the underpinning blockchains were not designed to host multimedia content. At the time of writing, storing even a low-bandwidth stereo audio file on the ethereum network appears cost-prohibitive. This presents a challenge for how music NFTs distinguish themselves in a marketplace dominated by visual works. The following sections of this article are divided into what we consider to be the general use cases for NFTs within music in 2021. We’ve designated three overlapping cases: audience investment, music ownership, and audience and business services. Audience Investment Significant discourse around NFTs focusses on digital collectibles and artwork that are conceptually, but not functionally, unique. Huge amounts of money have changed hands for specific—often celebrity brand-led—creations, resulting in media cycles of hype and derision. The high value of these NFTs has been variously ascribed to their high novelty value, scarcity, the adoption of NFTs as speculative assets by investors, and the lack of regulatory oversight allowing for price inflation via practices such as wash-trading (Madeline; Das et al.; Cong et al.; Le Pennec, Fielder, and Ante; Fazil, Owfi, and Taesiri). We see here the initial traditional split of discourse around cultural activity within a new medium: dual narratives of utopianism and dystopianism. Regardless of the discursive frame, activity has grown steadily since stories reporting the failure of Blockchain to deliver on its hype began appearing in 2017 (Ellul). Early coverage around blockchain, music, and NFTs echoes this capacity to leverage artificial scarcity via the creation of unique digital assets (cf Heap; Tomaino). As NFTs have developed, this discourse has become more nuanced, arguing that creators are now able to exploit both ownership and abundance. However, for the most part, music NFTs have essentially adopted the form of digital artworks and collectibles in editions ranging from 1:1 or 1:1000+. Grimes’s February 2021 Mars NFT pointed to a 32-second rotating animation of a sword-wielding cherubim above the planet Mars, accompanied by a musical cue (Grimes). Mars sold 388 NFTs for a reported fixed price of $7.5k each, grossing $2,910,000 at time of minting. By contrast, electronic artists Steve Aoki and Don Diablo have both released 1:1 NFT editions that have been auctioned via Sotheby’s, Superrare, and Nifty Gateway. Interestingly, these works have been bundled with physical goods; Diablo’s Destination Hexagonia, which sold for 600 Eth or approximately US$1.2 million at the time of sale, proffered ownership of a bespoke one-hour film hosted online, along with “a unique hand-crafted box, which includes a hard drive that contains the only copy of the high-quality file of the film” (Diablo). Aoki’s Hairy was much less elaborate but still promised to provide the winner of the $888,888 auction with a copy of the 35-second video of a fur-covered face shaking in time to downbeat electronica as an Infinite Objects video print (Aoki). In the first half of 2021, similar projects from high-profile artists including Deadmau5, The Weekend, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Blondie, and 3Lau have generated an extraordinary amount of money leading to a significant, and understandable, appetite from musicians wanting to engage in this marketplace. Many of these artists and the platforms that have enabled their sales have lauded the potential for NFTs to address an alleged poor remuneration of artists from streaming and/or bypassing “industry middlemen” (cf. Sounds.xyz); the millions of dollars generated by sales of these NFTs presents a compelling case for exploring these new markets irrespective of risk and volatility. However, other artists have expressed reservations and/or received pushback on entry into the NFT marketplace due to concerns over the environmental impact of NFTs; volatility; and a perception of NFT markets as Ponzi schemes (Poleg), insecure (Goodin), exploitative (Purtill), or scammy (Dash). As of late 2021, increased reportage began to highlight unauthorised or fraudulent NFT minting (cf. TFL; Stephen), including in music (Newstead). However, the number of contested NFTs remains marginal in comparison to the volume of exchange that occurs in the space daily. OpenSea alone oversaw over US$2.5 billion worth of transactions per month. For the most part, online NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and Solanart oversee the exchange of products on terms not dissimilar to other large online retailers; the space is still resolutely emergent and there is much debate about what products, including recently delisted pro-Nazi and Alt-Right-related NFTs, are socially and commercially acceptable (cf. Pearson; Redman). Further, there are signs this trend may impact on both the willingness and capacity of rightsholders to engage with NFTs, particularly where official offerings are competing with extant fraudulent or illegitimate ones. Despite this, at the time of writing the NFT market as a whole does not appear prone to this type of obstruction. What remains complicated is the contested relationship between NFTs, copyrights, and ownership of the assets they represent. This is further complicated by tension between the claims of blockchain’s independence from existing regulatory structures, and the actual legal recourse available to music rights holders. Music Rights and Ownership Baym et al. note that addressing the problems of rights management and metadata is one of the important discussions around music convened by early blockchain projects. While they posit that “our point is not whether blockchain can or can’t fix the problems the music industries face” (403), for some professionals, the blockchain’s promise of eliminating the need for trust seemed to provide an ideal solution to a widely acknowledged business-to-business problem: one of poor metadata leading to unclaimed royalties accumulating in “black boxes”, particularly in the case of misattributed mechanical royalties in the USA (Rethink Music Initiative). As outlined in their influential institutional research paper (partnered with music rights disruptor Kobalt), the Rethink Music Initiative implied that incumbent intermediaries were benefiting from this opacity, incentivising them to avoid transparency and a centralised rights management database. This frame provides a key example of one politicised version of “fairness”, directly challenging the interest of entrenched powers and status quo systems. Also present in the space is a more pragmatic approach which sees problems of metadata and rights flows as the result of human error which can be remedied with the proper technological intervention. O’Dair and Beaven argue that blockchain presents an opportunity to eliminate the need for trust which has hampered efforts to create a global standard database of rights ownership, while music business researcher Opal Gough offers a more sober overview of how decentralised ledgers can streamline processes, remove inefficiencies, and improve cash flow, without relying on the moral angle of powerful incumbents holding on to control accounts and hindering progress. In the intervening two years, this discourse has shifted from transparency (cf. Taghdiri) to a practical narrative of reducing system friction and solving problems on the one hand—embodied by Paperchain, see Carnevali —and ethical claims reliant on the concept of fairness on the other—exemplified by Resonate—but with, so far, limited widespread impact. The notion that the need for b2b collaboration on royalty flows can be successfully bypassed through a “trustless” blockchain is currently being tested. While these earlier projects were attempts to either circumvent or fix problems facing the traditional rights holders, with the advent of the NFT in particular, novel ownership structures have reconfigured the concept of a rights holder. NFTs promise fans an opportunity to not just own a personal copy of a recording or even a digitally unique version, but to share in the ownership of the actual property rights, a role previously reserved for record labels and music publishers. New NFT models have only recently launched which offer fans a share of IP revenue. “Collectors can buy royalty ownership in songs directly from their favorite artists in the form of tokens” through the service Royal. Services such as Royal and Vezt represent potentially massive cultural shifts in the traditional separation between consumers and investors; they also present possible new headaches and adventures for accountants and legal teams. The issues noted by Baym et al. are still present, and the range of new entrants into this space risks the proliferation, rather than consolidation, of metadata standards and a need to put money into multiple blockchain ecosystems. As noted in RMIT’s blockchain report, missing royalty payments … would suggest the answer to “does it need a blockchain?” is yes (although further research is needed). However, it is not clear that the blockchain economy will progress beyond the margins through natural market forces. Some level of industry coordination may still be required. (18) Beyond the initial questions of whether system friction can be eased and standards generated without industry cooperation lie deeper philosophical issues of what will happen when fans are directly incentivised to promote recordings and artist brands as financial investors. With regard to royalty distribution, the exact role that NFTs would play in the ownership and exploitation of song IP remains conceptual rather than concrete. Even the emergent use cases are suggestive and experimental, often leaning heavily on off-chain terms, goodwill and the unknown role of existing legal infrastructure. Audience and Business Services Aside from the more high-profile NFT cases which focus on the digital object as an artwork providing a source of value, other systemic uses of NFTs are emerging. Both audience and business services are—to varying degrees—explorations of the utility of NFTs as a community token: i.e. digital commodities that have a market value, but also unlock ancillary community interaction. The music industries have a longstanding relationship with the sale of exclusivity and access tailored to experiential products. Historically, one of music’s most profitable commodities—the concert ticket—contains very little intrinsic value, but unlocks a hugely desirable extrinsic experience. As such, NFTs have already found adoption as tools of music exclusivity; as gateways into fan experiences, digital communities, live events ticketing and closed distribution. One case study incorporating almost all of these threads is the Deathbats club by American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold. Conceived of as the “ultimate fan club”, Deathbats is, according to the band’s singer M. Shadows, “every single thing that [fans] want from us, which is our time, our energy” (Chan). At the time of writing, the Deathbats NFT had experienced expected volatility, but maintained a 30-day average sale price well above launch price. A second affordance provided by music NFTs’ ability to tokenise community is the application of this to music businesses in the form of music DAOs: decentralised autonomous organisations. DAOs and NFTs have so far intersected in a number of ways. DAOs function as digital entities that are owned by their members. They utilise smart contracts to record protocols, votes, and transactions on the blockchain. Bitcoin and Ethereum are often considered the first DAOs of note, serving as board-less venture capital funds, also known as treasuries, that cannot be accessed without the consensus of their members. More recently, DAOs have been co-opted by online communities of shared interests, who work towards an agreed goal, and operate without the need for leadership. Often, access to DAO membership is tokenised, and the more tokens a member has, the more voting rights they possess. All proposals must pass before members, and have been voted for by the majority in order to be enacted, though voting systems differ between DAOs. Proposals must also comply with the DAO’s regulations and protocols. DAOs typically gather in online spaces such as Discord and Zoom, and utilise messaging services such as Telegram. Decentralised apps (dapps) have been developed to facilitate DAO activities such as voting systems and treasury management. Collective ownership of digital assets (in the form of NFTs) has become commonplace within DAOs. Flamingo DAO and PleasrDAO are two well-established and influential examples. The “crypto-backed social club” Friends with Benefits (membership costs between $5,000 and $10,000) serves as a “music discovery platform, an online publication, a startup incubator and a kind of Bloomberg terminal for crypto investors” (Gottsegen), and is now hosting its own curated NFT art platform with work by the likes of Pussy Riot. Musical and cross-disciplinary artists and communities are also exploring the potential of DAOs to empower, activate, and incentivise their communities as an extension of, or in addition to, their adoption and exploration of NFTs. In collaboration with Never Before Heard Sounds, electronic artist and musical pioneer Holly Herndon is exploring ideological questions raised by the growing intelligence of AI to create digital likeness and cloning through voice models. Holly+ is a custom voice instrument that allows users to process pre-existing polyphonic audio through a deep neural network trained by recordings of Holly Herndon’s voice. The output is audio-processed through Holly Herndon’s distinct vocal sound. Users can submit their resulting audio to the Holly+ DAO, to whom she has distributed ownership of her digital likeness. DAO token-holders steward which audio is minted and certified as an NFT, ensuring quality control and only good use of her digital likeness. DAO token-holders are entitled to a percentage of profit from resales in perpetuity, thereby incentivising informed and active stewardship of her digital likeness (Herndon). Another example is LA-based label Leaving Records, which has created GENRE DAO to explore and experiment with new levels of ownership and empowerment for their pre-existing community of artists, friends, and supporters. They have created a community token—$GENRE—for which they intend a number of uses, such as “a symbol of equitable growth, a badge of solidarity, a governance token, currency to buy NFTs, or as a utility to unlock token-gated communities” (Leaving Records). Taken as a whole, the spectrum of affordances and use cases presented by music NFTs can be viewed as a build-up of interest and capital around the technology. Conclusion The last half of 2021 was a moment of intense experimentation in the realms of music business administration and cultural expression, and at the time of writing, each week seemed to bring a new high-profile music Web3 project and/or disaster. Narratives of emancipation and domination under capitalism continue to drive our discussions around music and technology, and the direct link to debates on ecology and financialisation make these conversations particularly polarising. High-profile cases of music projects that overstep norms of existing IP rights, such as Hitpiece’s attempt to generate NFTs of songs without right-holders’ consent, point to the ways in which this technology is portrayed as threatening and subversive to commercial musicians (Blistein). Meanwhile, the Water and Music research DAO promises to incentivise a research community to “empower music-industry professionals with the knowledge, network and skills to do more collaborative and progressive work with technology” through NFT tokens and a DAO organisational structure (Hu et al.). The assumption in many early narratives of the ability of blockchain to provide systems of remuneration that musicians would embrace as inherently fairer is far from the reality of a popular discourse marked by increasing disdain and distrust, currently centred on NFTs as lacking in artistic merit, or even as harmful. We have seen all this talk before, of course, when jukeboxes and player pianos, film synchronisation, radio, recording, and other new communication technologies steered new paths for commercial musicians and promised magical futures. All of these innovations were met with intense scrutiny, cries of inauthentic practice, and resistance by incumbent musicians, but all were eventually sustained by the emergence of new forms of musical expression that captured the interest of the public. On the other hand, the road towards musical nirvana passes by not only the more prominent corpses of the Digital Audio Tape, SuperAudio, and countless recording formats, but if you squint and remember that technology is not always about devices or media, you can see the Secure Download Music Initiative, PressPlay, the International Music Registry, and Global Repertoire Databases in the distance, wondering if blockchain might correct some of the problems they dreamed of solving in their day. The NFT presents the artistic and cultural face of this dream of a musical future, and of course we are first seeing the emergence of old models within its contours. 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