Bootleg: music NFTs that pay the artist back
The first music NFT that unlocked concert video and routed royalties back to the artist. Open source SDK.
Background
Bootleg recordings are as old as concerts. The fan gets the tape, the artist gets nothing. We wanted to flip that with a token that tracks who has owned a recording and pays everyone up the chain when it changes hands.
What I built
A Shared Royalty Non-Fungible Token, built on ERC-721 with custom contracts for royalty distribution, access control, and payment settlement. The flow: a bootlegger captures a live performance and mints a token, the artist approves it and gets paid, and a fan buys access to the recording. When that fan later sells the token, they join the "franchisor's list" and earn a slice of every subsequent sale, as does the artist. Encrypted video is unlocked by holding the token.
It was the first music NFT to unlock concert video and pay royalties back to the artist. The SDK is open source on GitHub, and there's a Team Zero project page.
Things I learned
- Royalty math is easy. Deciding who deserves royalties is the argument.
- Encrypted content plus on-chain access control works, but key management is the whole game.
- Ideas like this took a couple more years to become mainstream. Being early is uncomfortable and useful.