The Nigeria music industry has been battling with piracy for ages with an estimated revenue loss of 5.1 billion dollars in the last three years to the grey market,gospel artistes are also not feeling any less of the hit as most of their works are reproduced all over..
But, on Wednesday, the artistes under the auspices of ‘The Minstrel’ said enough is enough, saying they are ready to combat piracy and grey market to the barest floor and have full control of what belong to them.
The gospel artists put their words into action as they all threw their weight behind a technology solution that was recently launched in Lagos. This android and ios download music app was developed by eTranzact- a digital content and payment solution service provider.
According to the Chief Executive Officer, eTranzact, Valentine Obi, who further explained the goal of the platform during the ‘The Minstrel’ digital music app launch, said, the platform was to disrupt the status quo in the industry and lead the proliferation of gospel music in Nigeria, Africa and the World.
He explained that the solution will eliminate the use of unconventional means of music distribution, tackling piracy and providing a multi-platform solution for consuming content, promoting gospel music and giving more control to how the gospel minstrels distribute their work.
“The Minstrels platform allows users to; purchase, download and listen to spirit lifting music on the go, enjoy exclusive releases from the Minstrels on the app, stream live music performances and get direct access to the Minstrels with special themed events and meet ups., share and gift songs and albums to friends and family, create playlists for different occasions and chat with their favorite.
As gathered for the gospel artistes that are featured on the app there are more benefits for them leveraging the cloud base digital solution on the app. “The platform allows Gospel Minstrels; Access to a cloud based repository to store all their content- Audio, Video and other music formats, Live stream events to a large audience, Monetize their content in one central location with prices set by them and revenue instantly tracked and remitted and make personal connections with fans with Minstrel events and other opportunities,” Obi added.
The payment for content t solution on the Minstrel website and mobile app is powered by eTranzact’s BankIT, which allows users to buy directly from their Bank accounts. BankIT TM powers airtime purchase directly from bank accounts on USSD, *444#, *805# and *695# on Airtel , Glo and Etisalat respectively and for DSTV users with over 1,000,000 customers using it to date.
In his remark, Nathaniel Bassey described the digital app music technology as an answer to prayer over the syndrome of piracy in the industry. He was in attendance with 16 other Minstrels including Frank Edwards, Sammie Okposo, Aity Dennis Inyang, Glowreeyah Braimah,
Others are Enitan Adaba, Victoria Orenze, Olumide Iyun, Nosa Omoregie, Obiora Obiwon, Eben, Joe Praize, Pat Uwaje-King, David Nkennor, Ese Mairo, Doris ‘Dumah and Wilson Joel at the eMinstrel app launch.
The event hashtag was #TheMinstrels, which trended on Twitter for 5 hours with over 2500 tweets as a campaign to get more Nigerians to listen to Gospel music. During the launch all the Gospel musicians used the Minstrels logo as their profile pictures.
Read also; http://www.newswatchnigeria.com/etranzact/
