SF MusicTech 2013 outs tech angst towards rights licensing

I attended my first SF MusicTech Summit yesterday at the Hotel Kabuki in Japantown. One of the huge benefits of relocating from Australia to the States is being able to easily, and relatively inexpensively, attend conferences like this. It was a great experience.

The busy schedule meant I didn't get to see every panel I would have liked, but one big takeaway for me was the angst that artists and those in tech have towards the licensing of rights. Not the need to license but rather the music industry's byzantine licensing structures.

One panel was almost in open revolt, yet no hard solutions were offered. This is a very complex problem to solve. Some would argue it may not be solvable at all.

I think there's a great opportunity to solve this and it's likely to involve blockchain technologies.