What if someone started a real underground music label on the dark web. Bitcoin only, no banks, no streaming and no middlemen. Artists could drop music, earn for say 5 or 10 years, then the rights go to the public domain. No corporate ownership, no lifetime contracts.
Could a label like that actually work?
Could it? Technically maybe. Would it? No.
None of the distribution to spread the artist’s work to a wider audience, reduced duration of profit per work, and weaker copyright protections even before going public domain. You could probably find ways to cut a music label’s revenue even more steeply if your really tried, but you’d have to really try. This is barely a step up from an artist trying to self publish, except the artist still has to give the label a cut AND they can only make money on the work for 5-10 years. Nobody would sign with this label in the first place, and the label itself would implode in short order.