Preserving music history in NFTs with Legends of Rock

Talking about non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the music industry usually means protecting artists’ copyrights and diversifying their revenue streams, preserving artwork on the blockchain, musicians collaborating with labels and artists, printing event tickets, giving exclusive bonuses to fans in this unique digital format or engage in a community. So why not do what the sports industry has done (and quite successfully) with the NFT memorabilia format?

The sports memorabilia market reached $2.6 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $227.2 billion in 10 years. The collectibles include sports trading cards, video clips of popular moments in sports history, autographs, accessories, and many other items that can be in both physical and digital formats. The same can be said about music memorabilia with rare vintage photos that already exist, sometimes only in unknown archives that are difficult to access.

Unique classic rock history moments

This was the case with Legends of Rock, which was acquired by Globe Entertainment and Media back in 2020. The collection, which had been owned by British photo agencies and archives for decades, was then shipped to Las Vegas. Packed in standard postal containers, it seemed unlikely to contain anything of high value or importance.

It was a total surprise for Klaus Moeller, CEO of Globe Entertainment and Media, to find around 8 million vintage, never-before-seen photos of the biggest rock stars – Queen, Deep Purple, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, The Police , Bruce Springsteen, Nirvana, The Who and many more. The photos are taken on stage and during other official moments, but also backstage in a more relaxed atmosphere. The images were created between the 1960s and the early 1980s, with some artists already in the spotlight and others just beginning their prolific careers. “It never ends. Every day we find the craziest things,” Moeller said of the archive.

To make the collection available worldwide, Globe Entertainment and Media partnered with MADworld, an innovative Web3 and digital ecosystem supported by Animoca Brands.

Moller said:

“We couldn’t have found a better partner than MADworld to introduce these unique, pivotal moments from music history to a new generation of fans. This collaboration helps us breathe new life into these legends of music’s past by putting them on Web3.”

Along with the physical slides, a professional quality high resolution digital image of the original slides is provided to the buyer as a digital Certificate of Authenticity (COA) NFT. This helps to prove ownership and guarantees authenticity. Additionally, in the event of a future secondary sale, it allows the buyer to easily and securely transfer ownership.

Phillip Tran, Head of Marketing at MADworld, said:

“We are thrilled to be a part of this exciting project. A global audience of music lovers, collectors and investors will now be able to use a secure, digital COA to verify each slide’s provenance through blockchain technology to simplify the authentication process and protect collectors from forgeries.”

Join the latest Cointelegraph AMA with Legends of Rock

Want to learn more about Legends of Rock, NFTs and real world memorabilia? Join the live discussion with Peter Laverick, the head of Legends of Rock, on May 3 at 14:00 UTC on Cointelegraph’s YouTube channel.

Topics that will be covered:

• The History of Legends of Rock, Archival Artifacts.
• Collecting memorabilia — measuring rarity, advice for collectors, nuances in collecting music memorabilia.
• Music NFTs and the changes needed to make them mainstream.