The Music Business Buddy
A podcast that aims to educate and inspire music creators in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. A new episode is released each Wednesday and aims to offer clarity and insight into a range of subjects across the music industry. The series includes soundbites and interviews with guests from all over the world together with commentary and clarity on a range of topics. The podcast is hosted by award winning music industry professional Jonny Amos.
Jonny Amos is the author of The Music Business for Music Creators (Routledge/ Focal Press, 2024). He is also a music producer with credits on a range of major and independent labels, a songwriter with chart success in Europe and Asia, a senior lecturer at BIMM University UK, a music industry consultant and an artist manager.
www.jonnyamos.com
The Music Business Buddy
Episode 63: Web3 Meets Music with IYK CEO Ryan Ouyang
The digital revolution in music is no longer just about streaming - it's now transforming the physical products we cherish as fans. Ryan Ouyang, CEO and founder of IYK, takes us deep into the fascinating world where physical merchandise becomes a gateway to exclusive digital experiences.
Ryan explains how IYK's NFC-embedded products allow fans to authenticate ownership and access exclusive content through a simple smartphone scan. What began as a Web3 experiment during the pandemic has evolved into partnerships with major artists like Disturbed and Chance the Rapper. The technology bridges the gap between traditional fan identification methods and the physical world where dedicated supporters buy merchandise and attend shows.
Imagine receiving a custom festival poster showcasing only the acts you personally witnessed, or a lanyard that unlocks exclusive album content. These innovations represent just the beginning of what's possible when digital authenticity meets physical products. As Ryan puts it, many fans feel "under monetised" by their favourite artists - they want more meaningful ways to engage beyond traditional merchandise and tickets.
The conversation reveals how IYK's technology integrates with existing industry structures like music charts while introducing Web3 principles that empower both artists and fans. All this happens without forcing users to navigate complicated wallet connections or blockchain transactions - the complex technology remains "under the hood" for seamless experiences.
Ready to explore how digi-physical could transform your relationship with fans? This episode provides a window into the future of music fandom where physical products become portals to exclusive experiences, and fans can finally prove and celebrate their dedication in both worlds.
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Hello everybody and a very warm welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, jonny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, which is available in hardback, paperback and ebook formats. I am a music creator as a writer, producer with various credits. I'm a consultant and artist manager and a senior lecturer in music business and music creation. Wherever you are and whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community around it. I am here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music.
Speaker 1:Okay, I have an absolutely fascinating interview for you this week, everybody, with Ryan Ouyang, who is the CEO and founder of IYK. Now, if you've never heard of IYK before, it is a platform that enables any brand musician or creator to deploy fully customizable digital physical experiences. So they've worked with leaders across a variety of industries, already in fashion, the likes of Billionaire's Boys Club and Adidas. Now they're moving over to music. They've worked with Disturbed Chance the Rapper. They did also the Digi Physical lanyards, for Ed Sheeran's latest album, digi Physical represents an entirely new paradigm for the relationship between consumers and the things that they own and their relationship to the brands that make the things that they love. So Ryan is not by his own admission, he is not an expert in music business, but I'll tell you guys, he is an expert in everything Web3, crypto, token decentralization all of the movements that we're seeing now in the Web3 era that move towards a peer-to-peer experience between fans and the music that they love and the people that make that music.
Speaker 1:We need people like Ryan to build what he is building in order for this business to evolve. So he has already achieved a monumental amount of success and raised millions and millions with this platform, and it could well have a hugely significant impact on the music industry going forward. In fact, it already is. It's not something that is laden with potential, it's already happening, and some big artists, as I mentioned, the likes of Ed Sheeran, disturbed Chance the Rapper, and many, many others to follow are already using this technology. So let me hand over to the interview with Ryan, and I hope you enjoy what he has to say. Here we go. So, ryan, welcome to the music business, buddy. I'm really glad that you're here and that I get a chance to talk to you. First and foremost, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. Yeah, it's been a great week. So I just got back from Chicago actually from Lollapalooza last week, so it's, yeah, just been great. I feel good from Lollapalooza last week.
Speaker 1:So it's, yeah, just been great. I feel good. Oh good, good man, good answer, okay. So let's begin then, ryan, by discussing IYK. So the platform that you're building that enables any brand, musician or creator to deploy fully customizable digi-physical experiences. Could you tell us a little bit about more about the platform, for the benefit of those that may not be aware of how it works and what stage you're at in sort of establishing your presence?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I can give a quick high level overview. And so we started actually back in 2021 during COVID, and so it really was about, you know, back when you know NFTs and Web3, you know people were in sort of full discussion about what that could mean for commerce and you know ownership, and we actually set out to combine sort of this idea of an NFT with, like, ownership in the physical world. And so the really cool thing about sort of that digital record of ownership is that you know any application can read it of ownership is that you know any application can read it. It's public, you can show it off, and we really want to bring that, so all of those characteristics of that digital asset, to physical ownership. And so the platform you know back then and even today, is really about how can we represent ownership of your physical items in a digital way.
Speaker 2:So, actually, the shirt I'm wearing right now has an NFC chip in it. Now I don't know if there's a video here, but for audio-only listeners, there's actually an orange tag on my t-shirt that you can scan with any modern smartphone and by scanning the chip, you can open up an experience that's non-shareable, fully gated to the chip that allows you to claim ownership of that specific product in a digital way, and so I can be a physical fan. I can buy, you know, a product at a store or at a concert and then digitally sort of authenticate and show off my ownership through using that secure chip.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so does that restrict itself only to collectibles.
Speaker 2:Not only collectibles. So we've chipped a lot of different things over the years. The really cool thing about the chips are that they are sort of secure right. If you scan them, you can't share the link, they're unclonable, you can't wipe them, and so for anyone that's looking for like authenticity or even just like a really cool way to communicate directly with the owner of a product, this becomes useful. And so we actually started off in the apparel biz. So we worked with brands like Billionaire Boys Club and 90cc and we did some of the Adidas promotional products and even today, actually, we do those and it's all really like about that sort of authenticity and you know, kind of engagement, fan engagement angle. Over time time, though, yeah, we've done toys, collectibles. We've worked with a few book publishers at this point, uh, some people have, you know, been chipping instruments, and so it's really been a wide variety of stuff. Um, and obviously more recently, uh, you know, uh, per the title of this podcast, I've been doing a lot more in the on the music side of things as well.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I'm so pleased to hear about this because I remember, you know, kind of back in, let's say, 2021, where people were talking about NFTs everywhere and I got tremendously excited about it and then it almost felt like, well, depending upon who you ask, the bubble kind of burst and I thought it was a real shame. I actually make a prediction in the book that I published last year about the return of NFTs, and so I'm really, really pleased that you are doing what you're doing, because I think there's a lot of people out there that perhaps misunderstood what it was all about Um, and and there is a future um very much you have mentioned there about your work with in with brands, both um, you know, in in fashion, for example, um, what, what, what does it look like on a music level? Are we talking about kind of merchandising and that kind of thing for fans?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think music, specifically, I think happens so much in like that live environment, right.
Speaker 2:Like I think, if you look at me when I'm supporting the artists that I love the most, right, john Mayer, for example, is like one of my all time favorite artists Like there's so much evidence that I am a fan that's represented in sort of the items that I own, right, like, I own a John Mayer t-shirt, I own John Mayer's signature guitar, I have like two of his watch collaborations with G-Shock and Casio, right, and so there's all this evidence, right, that I am a fan of that artist because they've, you know, put their name on and, you know, created these things for me as a fan to buy.
Speaker 2:I think that's a lot of where our work manifests, where, if I'm a merch owner, if I have all of these things, if I've demonstrated myself to be a fan in these ways, I want that to be represented digitally so that you know I might be, you know, the first one to get tickets or, you know, get a chance for a seat upgrade at a show, or, you know, like a way to represent my fandom digitally means that that's actually a direct path for the artists to recognize me for my support of them over the years, and so that's really sort of the place where we live, which is so that's really sort of the place where we live, which is how could we take you know your existing population of fans and really recognize them for their support in a way that they haven't felt in the past.
Speaker 2:We really believe that there were a lot of tools to identify your fans digitally right, like a mailing list or something like that, but those fans that bought merch at your concert aren't on the mailing list, or the people who maybe showed up to some pop-up concert like you might not have their email, and so giving them different sort of physical ways to really identify themselves, whether it's through a chip or something else, that's really been our focus on the music side.
Speaker 1:That makes perfect sense. Yeah, I love it. Okay, so you mentioned this briefly earlier, but obviously you possess a great deal of knowledge in Web3, crypto and the culture of kind of decentralization in general. Has this unlocked a better understanding for the need for you know this positive disruption in the music industry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for us it's really informed, like principles, in terms of like how we build things, trying to match or build with those principles in a space that's sometimes sort of resistant to things like open data, right. I think like one of the interesting things and I can pick out many here but one of the really interesting things about the music sort of data capture, kind of first party data movement is that it seems like you know everyone owns their own slice of the fan base, right, when labels are helping sell records, they are collecting, you know, information and mailing lists and through Shopify and stuff that sort of belongs to them. But then when management goes out, you know on tour and maybe projects a QR code or does an in-person activation, they might be collecting the emails there. And you know, on tour and maybe projects a QR code or does an in-person activation, they might be collecting the emails there. And you know the promoter has their own set of data and it's like right, like the promise of Web3 is that like sort of the fan is able to identify themselves, reveal themselves to the artist, sort of attest that you know they've done all of these things like go to a show, like buy records, like show up to a pop-up, and I think, like these two sort of models of looking at things you know one which is sort of the traditional music industry, like I own this, I own that versus sort of this Web3 of like, no, like the fan identifies themselves and like attests themselves to many things. I think these are sort of very different views of how data should work and we're trying to sort of work at the intersection of that, where we're saying you know, you as an artist should be able to identify all your fans in any environment, whether that's in the digital environment or in the physical environment, and fans should be able to have like proof that cannot be taken away from them that they have completed sort of these verified fan actions of buying, merch and showing up to shows.
Speaker 2:And you know, furthermore, you should not lose this connection as a fan or as an artist. If this connection as a fan or as an artist, if you know the artist switches, you know labels or switches managers, or you know puts out, you know, new material, maybe in another sort of genre or industry, or even if IYK goes down, you shouldn't lose this connection, right, and I think those principles meshing in with how people currently think about things has been a very interesting challenge. Uh, but yeah, um, I would say, in general, I I am sort of a web three, sort of decentralization, sort of not maxi, but just like a, I call it like missionary, I guess, like I really believe that this, this is how it should be done and, um, we're trying to build with with those principles in mind.
Speaker 1:But they're good principles. I mean, I guess a lot of the solutions moving forward perhaps sit in education. You know, people building trust and that kind of thing. I guess in time that will get easier and easier as people become more and more used to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:I think you know IYK is powered by a lot of these technologies that, in you know, a few years ago like 2021, right were very much like in your face.
Speaker 2:Right, you had to connect your wallet, you had to sign a transaction, you had to really do a lot of these more tricky things that didn't make a lot of sense and required a lot of sort of educational lift to really understand.
Speaker 2:But now, like all of those sort of things like getting a wallet and stuff, do happen under the hood. And so for us, right, if we're building a fan's inventory over you know, the multiple artists that they support, that is happening, you know, with web3 and wallets and nfts and but, but but more under the hood, right? So you, as a fan, all you see is punch your phone number in, oh, verify your email, oh, sign in with google, right, it's like these more sort of traditional methods that are actually bridging the gap between you know what you already know, which is sort of these call it login methods in this example, and like what you already know, which is sort of these call it login methods in this example, and what you don't, which is this more sort of technical Web3 stuff that I hope does end up just staying like an implementation detail that people don't have to think about.
Speaker 1:Do you see what you've built and the work that you're doing? Does it sit inside the current kind of landscape of the music industry, or would it take some kind of shifts within the music industry for it to fully embed itself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a fantastic question. I think a lot of maybe the way we think about it is we're embedding incrementally, right, and we've built this product that did sit entirely outside of the music industry in, so that, like, I guess, in a way that like we weren't really focused on music at all, you know, and you know we were working in fashion and publishing and we end up actually getting interest from artists and labels being like, oh, I have a lot of bootleg merch, would this help me? Right? I, you know, want to communicate directly with physical owners of my merch, would this help me? And so, slowly, slowly, we started learning about like sort of the wants and needs of all of these different players in the music industry, and so the product sort of changes to help them. And then the more we do that, the more we uncover things that are unique to the traditional music industry that people find important.
Speaker 2:And so one actually fantastic example of this is like charting Right is like charting right, I don't know, like before we came into music, we didn't really like I, at least personally, didn't really know that like charts, you know, really mattered as much as they do, and also that like I didn't realize how they were compiled, where you got, like these companies that actually just tell you have all these sales and all these different vendors, and I'm like, oh, like this is actually like kind of a cool thing that I had no idea was happening. Honestly, I just never thought to question, like, how do people build the top 40, I guess, um, but you know, learning about that and learning that that's important does allow us to now integrate just that step further. Right, we're in the uk and germany and ireland. Like, if you buy a, you know, a chipped product that's powered by us, that has music on it, it actually contributes to to that artist's charting position for that week, right? And so we've been doing sort of album release campaigns with people like Ed Sheeran and Bring Me the Horizon and Tate McCray and these great artists who, when they're coming out with their record, want to sell this cool physical product that helps contribute to their charting position.
Speaker 2:And so I would say that's a long answer, but I would say I think, as I learn more about the industry, it gives me more sort of surface to actually like integrate more with what people find, you know, important and familiar. And I think, like I'm still very much a beginner, and so I feel like every week and two weeks we discover something that's like oh, like that's important in the music side, and how can we support that and what does that mean for sort of all these different things that we plan to build and so, um, it's really been great, actually just like just fun, uh, learning about all of this as a beginner it sounds fascinating.
Speaker 1:Actually, I thought your answer there was brilliant, to be honest, ryan, because, um, whilst you were, you were talking there. I was immediately mapping what you were saying to different people that I talked to, not only on the podcast but in the music industry and in music education. For example, some of the students that I work with at the university where I teach you know they're Gen Z but they love physical products, right, and that's not just a handful of people, it's like I think I surveyed a a lecture theater recently where I think there was over 90 at the room. Um had a cassette not a cassette player, but I had a cassette, right. Maybe it was some kind of live giveaway thing or a package with something else or whatever. There is certainly the craving to acquire physical product.
Speaker 1:Now, if I just parked out there for a minute and then over on the other side, I also witnessed kind of some of the, let's say, the major label conglomerates or even just kind of, you know, indie labels and distributors that really struggle to kind of map what we're talking about here on a cataloguing level.
Speaker 1:The solutions are out there. It will get figured out, I'm sure, but it's a fascinating subject because it feels like, you know, you are really at the beginning of something which I think could be absolutely huge in terms of impact. I really do. I mean, especially when you think about, you know the fact that one of the things that fascinates me the most, ryan, is when we look at other industries around us and we go right, what can the music business learn from the media world, the television world or whatever it might be? And that's one of the things that I often do.
Speaker 1:I often look around different territories around the world. What can we learn in music from the way the dance industry are doing something? What can we learn from the way India is currently doing something? And it feels a little bit like that to me with you here, in as much as that, you're kind of going well, we did this with this brand and in fashion, and now we can kind of see how this could work in music, and I think that's really, really exciting, because there's probably things that have not come up yet that could be real game changers just with this technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I certainly hope so. I mean we're very interested in like sort of pushing concepts forward, whether that's like entirely novel things or bringing things from other industries that we've learned right. I think one thing that's like cool that we've done in fashion is like doing these like citywide scavenger hunts where fans are like sort of piecing together like call it the next album track list by visiting different iconic places in la, for example, right, like as a concept, like these are creative things that you can do if you have sort of chips that validate taps and people can like go to Santa Monica Pier and tap and then go to downtown LA and tap and go to Hollywood and tap and like. There's just so many concepts that we want to bring to life and we honestly some of our experiments hit and some of our experience don't hit, and it's all in this process of discovering, like in music, what do people want.
Speaker 2:I think the delicate balance here is has always been this sort of two-way exchange, where some of the things that, like artist teams get really excited about we've been thinking like and like I don't know if fans are really going to get excited about that right, and some of the things that we as fans really want to get excited about then.
Speaker 2:Then we go to the artist teams are like, well, but then the licensing of this and then the video from that is going to be hard and this is a big lift for it, you know. And then so it's really just finding, like, what are those things that feel really good for both the fan and the artists and that's sort of like that super golden, like opportunity zone for us that we're constantly sort of just poking at and trying to discover more of um. So, yeah, really, I think working across industries has definitely been very helpful because we've been bringing sort of fresh ideas that haven't really been tried in the music space. Um. But yeah, working around the constraints and sort of the wants and the opportunities in the music space has been, yeah, yeah, super fun from that perspective too.
Speaker 1:Wow, very cool, ok, ok, what about this for a scenario then? Right, ok, bear with me, ryan, right? So so how about if live streaming events were to evolve further and further, to the point whereby, um, you and I, you're in toronto, I'm here in birmingham in the uk, but we could go to the same gig in tokyo tomorrow, right, and we both streamed it and we both kind of, you know we're there and you know, I kind of virtually saw you there or whatever. Um, and you know my, I can kind of get all these different camera angles, I can go close to the stage or from the comfort of my own home. I think that's ahead of us, right, I've done a podcast about that before, but I'm wondering where this technology fits into it and I'm wondering if I explain something to you.
Speaker 1:Tell me whether you think this is viable, right, yeah, okay, just imagine that my experience there is. We're in the same place on a virtual level, yeah, but the way that you pivoted and kind of went to that part of the stage to zoom in on that or listen to this, and you kind of move around here and we've got the spatial audio to kind of move around again, the technology is there for all that kind of stuff, but your experiences was then documented in, you know, in a token that's unique to you and you can wear that on a t-shirt, yeah, and you can kind of walk around with pride going. That was my experience of me going there. And then they kind of go well wait, when they came to town, I went to see them, but 16 of those 32 shows I was there for virtually, and this is what it looks like. Is that merchandisable? Is that something that is feasible?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think one thing that we have learned is that fans love like physical memorabilia, right, and I think there's such a unique opportunity to do this in a more personalized way, right, I think one of the things that we were so excited to do which ended up, uh, not happening last year, but I'm just gonna, you know, say it here is the idea of, like at a music festival, cataloging all of the sets that you saw, and so, at each music festival, right before the act came on, you might check in by a QR code or a chip tap and you would build your own sort of Spotify wrapped-esque concert concept for your personal festival experience, right. So at the end of the festival, you could generate a graphic that was like, oh, I went to Dochi and Sabrina Carpenter and I went to, you know, role Model and all of these different artists, and this was my unique sort of festival of experience, and other people have their different list of sets that they saw right, and you could get that generated graphic on, you know, a T-shirt or a plaque or a poster, right, your own personalized, imagine your own personalized festival poster where, instead of the whole lineup on the poster, it was like the ones that you saw personally and you had this like thing that only you could have, right, because that was your experience at call it a Lollapalooza or a GovBall or a Coachella, right, but that's just your experience. And I think being able to essentially, like, create and distribute those one of ones that are verifiable right that you can't forge, I think is going to be a huge part of this. I mean, there's a lot of people doing great work here, like we are trying to fill in that gap in terms of, like, how do we validate sort of that? You, as a fan, did all of these things to provide the input data to generate this thing, but the people who are actually working on creating these physical objects are sort of that. You, as a fan, did all of these things to provide the input data to generate this thing, but the people who are actually working on creating these physical objects are equally as amazing. And so, um, there's a company called generative goods actually, um, from the good folks at art blocks who are like, investing in building essentially the machinery for doing these like one-off items, right, and and so you could generate a graphic and then put it on a hat, put it on a poster, put it on a t-shirt, one of one, unique to every single fan, right, taking the inputs that are unique to that fan, like which sets they saw how long they were at the festival for, and just like feeding it into this sort of generator that comes out with a beautiful physical item at the end that you can just like walk off and hold, or it gets shipped to your house, right, really easy, I think. I think it's brilliant and I think what ends up changing in your example versus mine, it's just what is the input data? Right? Yeah, if we know that you and I are at this, you and I are maybe like, just like you know, fortnight style, like we're in a party, right, this is the group, like this is our festival group, but it's virtual Like the group. Maybe the names are what gets put on, like our personalized version of the festival poster.
Speaker 2:After you know, this whole thing is over, right, and so there's just so much possibility here that I think, like, especially with e-commerce and generative manufacturing and you know, nfts and proofs and all of these digital tools, like I think there really is something really interesting, yeah, yeah, and we just have to try it.
Speaker 2:That's the thing. Like, I was bummed out that we like, I mean we want to try many things, and obviously many of the things that we want to try and we pitch and we sort of you know, half of them end up working and then out of this half um, you know, that's out of only the like the 20 of stuff that we actually get to try, right, and so really like I think there's so much possibility here that's amazing that what you've explained there is like the ultimate live music souvenir, right there you know, like there's, you know this, it's all great, going and buying you know the t-shirt of that festival or whatever, and saying, you know the people wear it with pride, like I was there that year and like I get that it's brilliant.
Speaker 1:But what you're talking about is the next level. Beyond that, that's tremendously exciting. It's a real kind of badge of honor that one of one of something. That's that's tremendously exciting. Um, do you know one of the things that that is natural, of course, in the music industry I guess, like many other sectors really, is that sometimes, when you spend so much of your career in one industry, you just think about the walls around you and kind of how it works. What I love about your mindset is that you don't think like that. You're kind of driven much more laterally by what is possible, to the point where you're trying to maybe even think of things that you go. Well, that's not a thing yet, but it could be Right. So it really fascinates me the way that you've got going forward for the role that you play in the music industry, that you think, yeah, we haven't done that yet, but it's kind of possible that we could. Is there anything like that that sits out of the traditional boundaries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh man, I feel like it's really just choosing what I want to say here.
Speaker 1:I don't want to get you in any trouble, by the way, with any of your partners or anything like that. I'm not trying to dish for an exclusive or anything, I'm just fascinated to see you know kind of an insight as to kind of you know what to expect. Because when, once music creators have an idea of what to expect, they can kind of go oh, I better start thinking about that. You know, yeah, but I don't want to get you in trouble, so you know, no pressure.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, all good, I think I'll keep it. I'm really, I think, excited by sort of musicians becoming more full stack in terms of how their fans can engage with them, and I think right now we're seeing like the majority of live being, you know, happening through shows and happening through merch. And really, when you look at sort of like the revenue numbers right, if you compare those two things to maybe like music sales, like for most artists, right, like a substantial amount of their business does come from live and we're trying to make live feel more enticing, feel more interesting, expand like the range of the products that fans would engage with in that live environment, right. And so, if you think about like merch, for example, or even like music, right, like you have CDs, vinyls, cassettes, right, like what else do you really have? Well, what if you add, like you know, like Ed Sheeran did, a fan lanyard, you know, from a live show that gives you access to his upcoming album? Right, and that's like a new music product that hasn't existed before.
Speaker 2:And so you know, we saw like that people want more ways to engage with their favorite artists. Like hell, even I feel like quote unquote, like under monetized by my favorite artists, right, like I, whenever you're in town, I go to your show and whenever you come out with a new record, I buy it. But, like, there's so much more that I want to engage with, you know, and you know I want to, for example, engage on a live stream. Right, I want to, you know, go to a pop up event. I want to, you know, do things like a listening party and I want to, you know, have like a cool sort of like fan club moment where maybe there's like an AMA or something like that, right, right, like I think there's so many different opportunities for artists to maybe like open up sort of the range of call it the product that they offer, where, if most people are just offering like three products, like music, like records, like uh, t-shirts and like tickets, like let's open that up like five things or seven things or ten things and have that all as a fan be verifiable, and so you constantly have this record of, like what's my fandom with this artist, here's how I can prove it, and really giving then artists that information to accelerate their businesses too.
Speaker 2:And so we're all team artists over here, over here, um, and we're going to come out with sort of a lot of experiments around this idea of, like, what other form factors are fans willing to and happy to engage in? Um, and I think, like the more that we can open that up, the more sort of uh, I mean interesting like releasing music gets, because you're doing so many more sort of novel and cool things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that makes a lot of sense. I wasn't familiar with the lanyard, by the way there. How, for example, how do you stop kind of you know people kind of copying, sharing the files of that music there? Is it just you have to use a specific app to do it, or what does that look like in terms of access to that music on that lanyard thing?
Speaker 2:with the uh like music releases that we do through the chips is that, um, there's like for the actual like album itself, um, they're, like, only accessible via the tap right, and so if tap it it opens up in like sort of your traditional web browser. You can't copy that link and post it on Twitter, for example, and so if you have an album download right, you can't just like tap your lanyard and then like, post that link on Twitter for everyone to get. So the actual links themselves are secured with an encrypted payload. Now, after you download the audio, it sort of works as any other digital download right and sort of the security from there then just depends on what DRM, the label or the artists have applied right to the download. But in terms of the actual sort of products themselves, they are secured primarily by sort of that tap mechanism.
Speaker 1:Okay, that makes sense. So you're doing as much as you can do there and then it's then on to the user to be restricted by the sort of yeah, sort of download DRM stuff. Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. Interesting. Okay, god, I could talk to you all day, but I know how busy you are and I'm so grateful for your, for your time here. Um, is there anything else that you want to add for the benefit of music creators, aware of what you're doing? Is there any final thoughts from you, ryan?
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I mean, I think the last thing to maybe say is you know, we're all in on kind of being team artists and making it, you know, as easy as possible for people to like just build like really successful artists, businesses and being able to actually like take their artwork and present it to fans in a way that makes them feel good but also makes fans feel really good to engage with it.
Speaker 2:I think, like for us you know, I as a fan, you know IYK exists because I have all these things from John Mayer, yet I still needed to wait in a Ticketmaster queue for tickets and then couldn't get them and then need to buy them on resale, and I think that was literally the phone call that I gave to my co-founder in 2021, being like, oh my goodness, this is the thing, um, that we got to figure out. And so I think, for us, really, if you're an artist that you know is really excited about you know, doing something novel, doing something innovative, um, you know recognizing your fans who show up to support you in that live environment, then I think, like we've got some pretty useful tools for you, um, and even if you're someone who maybe hasn't, uh, isn't doing much in live or uh, something like that. I think we, we're, we're also very interested because I think for us, like, the magic of this has really um been obvious when sort of that physical and digital come together, and um, the more that we can sort of uh bring to, when sort of that physical and digital come together and um, the more that we can sort of uh bring to the sort of artist side of the field, uh, the better Um. So yeah, thank you so much for having me on. This has been a pleasure, so.
Speaker 1:Oh no, it's not man, it's. It's really interesting Cause I really want to go and talk to some some fans and some some artists, because I think a lot of their creative ideas as to what their ideals are can then, you know, would be useful, I guess, to you. It informs you of what, what you can do then to partner up with future ideas. You know, if a record company comes to you and says, right, this artist wants to do this and we've got kind of some proof of concept over high over here, we've done some market research, some fans want to do this, is that something that can be done? You know, I guess the more those conversations go on, the more this whole thing evolves, which is tremendously exciting. Yeah, top man ryan, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Good luck with everything you're doing, good luck with all your projects, all your ideas, and I wish you nothing but love and the best wishes going forward.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Yeah, same to you, and thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1:What a fascinating guy, my goodness me. It really does feel to me that we're at the beginnings here of really quite a new era in the creative industries and in music. When we start to think about people like Ryan and what they've built and the success that it's had in other creative industries and then the role that it could play in music, especially when combined with innovative thinking, from what the fans want to what the artists are building and how they want to connect with each other, you know it's a dawn of a very, very exciting new change and it's people like Ryan that are pioneering that change. So I thank him for joining me and I hope that you've all gained quite a lot from listening to Ryan and his ideas. But until next time, everybody, have a great day and may the force be with you.
