Is the music industry's future in NFTs?

No, it's not a mind-bending collaborative single. Instead, together they've each earned millions in recent months by selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs), paid for in online crypto-currency.

This has sparked media and music industry buzz, but for many outside the bubble these terms still feel alien - causing eyes to glaze over in confusion.

In fact, non-fungible simply means unique. The token acts as a digital certificate of ownership for whatever the creator, in this case a musician, decides to put up for sale. This can be anything from a single traditional album, to a bundle including extras such as gig tickets and exclusive bonus tracks.

Fans buy NFTs through crypto-currency - online money that includes a record of who owns what, stored on a shared ledger known as the blockchain. The advantage for the artist is that they set the terms and can embed "smart contracts" that ensure a slice of any resale value.

Here comes the even stranger part: although each NFT sold supposed to be one of a kind, its contents can still be shared, copied and sold to anyone further sown the line. This means the NFT's value is defined in part by its scarcity - the lower the number, the higher the value, with the original copy often the most prized.

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