Back in 2006 we started mulling over the complexity and opacity in all matters related to royalties and copyright, and Thor was struck by the similarities between music copyright registration and the handling of shares in a company on the stock market. (At the time we were a fast growing music distribution company with music on the mobile phone (launched 4 June 2004 with partners SonyMusic and Mic
rosoft)). Why can’t this principle be applied in the world of music copyright? In 2006 the technology didn’t exist to handle these questions, so the project was deferred. Fast forward to 2013, the technology that brought all of Thor’s visions back to life was bitcoin and the underlying technology – blockchain (Distributed Ledger Technology DLT). Guy Fletcher, OBE and Thor Pettersen had by then launched Internet Music ltd which became the core UK company. In 2016 we incorporated New Internet Media to act as a holding company for the commercial companies Internet Music Exchange and Internet Music Marketing. A holding company makes sense as we discovered many other implementations of our nano-payments principle, as well as setting up similar processes based upon the “More money, faster to the owners of copyright” services. The “old” name Internet Music is now the name of the company (limited by guarantee) which is owned by copyright owners in musical works and recordings.
