Spotify acquires music industry blockchain startup Mediachain

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek

Music streaming platform Spotify has acquired Mediachain Labs, the team behind blockchain startup Mediachain’s open source protocol, for an undisclosed sum.

The move is in an effort to create ‘a more fair, transparent and rewarding music industry for creators and rights owners’.

“From inception, the mission of Mediachain Labs has been to build a more connected world for creators,” said the Mediachain Labs team in a blog post. “Inspired by the disruptive technology behind Bitcoin, we set out to explore how the next generation of blockchains and open, peer-to-peer protocols would empower creators to better reach their audiences and earn a living.”

Mediachain’s team will join Spotify’s New York City offices, while it turns over its Mediachain to the open source software community – keeping all source code and documentation open source and openly licensed.

“Today Spotify is pleased to welcome the team from Mediachain Labs to Spotify,” said Spotify. “Brooklyn-based Mediachain Labs has been the driving force behind the Mediachain project, a world-class blockchain research agenda and open source protocol to better manage data that is critical to the health of the music industry.”