Data Has A Lot To Say About Music Royalties, All You Need To Do Is Listen
The rise of digital music streaming has brought unprecedented access and convenience to listeners around the world. With a click or tap, nearly any song imaginable is available to play on-demand. But for artists and others involved in creating that music, this digital ecosystem has come with a significant challenge – getting accurately paid the royalties they‘re rightfully owed.
At the heart of this challenge lies a deceptively simple concept: metadata. This is the underlying data attached to each song that identifies key information like the artist name, song title, record label, publisher, and more. In theory, this metadata should make it easy to track a song‘s use and determine who to pay. But in practice, lack of conformity in how metadata is logged across different streaming platforms and media outlets often results in critical data being lost – and artists‘ pockets being shortchanged.
The Metadata Problem
For a song to generate royalties for its creators and owners, the metadata needs to stay intact as that song is distributed across various digital platforms. But this is easier said than done. Different streaming services, social media sites, TV networks, and other places where music is played don‘t have a uniform way of ingesting and tracking metadata.
Crucial identifiers like publisher and producer names often get left by the wayside as songs make their digital journeys. Without this information, platforms can‘t accurately report royalty-generating activity back to rights holders. It‘s a bit like sending a check in the mail with no recipient name and hoping it makes its way to the right person. More often than not, that money ends up lost in limbo instead of in the bank account it belongs to.
The Lost Royalties Epidemic
This metadata mixup has created a costly conundrum for the music industry. Worldwide, unpaid royalties have climbed to a staggering $2.5 billion by some estimates. That‘s a huge pool of money that by all rights should be flowing into the pockets of music creators and businesses – but instead is stuck in an unattributed state.
The problem extends far beyond streaming services too. Across radio, TV, social media videos, business websites, and more, music is frequently used commercially without proper licensing, reporting, or payment. In fact, it‘s estimated that 80% of music used for business purposes falls into this category of misuse – a huge slice of the royalties pie that‘s simply not making it to its rightful owners.
Who‘s Losing Out?
The short answer is – nearly everybody involved in music creation. A Verge article gives the example of a musician owed $40,000 over six years for 70 songs – a significant amount of back royalties to leave on the table. Major artists aren‘t immune to the issue either.
Katy Perry‘s hit "Firework" is often cited to demonstrate the complex web of writers, producers, record labels, and publishers that can be tied to a single song. With so many parties involved and such convoluted metadata chains, even hugely popular songs can see large sums of their royalties slip through the cracks or get tangled up in indefinite holding patterns.
Of course, less famous artists have even less leverage to chase down and claim unpaid royalties from big tech behemoths. For independent musicians, every dollar of lost royalties is sorely missed income that they often can‘t afford to lose.
Data Collection To The Rescue
Amidst this chaotic landscape, royalty-hunting has emerged as a new line of defense for artists and rights holders looking to reclaim what they‘re owed. A growing field of specialists are now leveraging data collection technologies to methodically scan the web and airwaves to identify errant usage of their clients‘ music.
By continuously monitoring top streaming services, video sites, social apps, broadcast channels, websites, and other commercial avenues, these copyright sleuths can pinpoint elements of a client‘s music catalog that pop up without proper metadata or licensing. Advanced audio fingerprinting techniques even allow them to detect snippets of songs used without authorization.
How It Works
So what exactly does this data-driven detective work entail? It starts with a reference database of audio files provided by the client – whether that‘s a record label, publisher, artist, or other entity that owns music rights. This database serves as a comparison point to check against as content is crawled and collected from around the web.
The data collection process involves deploying web crawler bots to thoroughly scan target websites and platforms. Along the way, the bots gather up all potentially relevant audio files, metadata, and contextual info. The goal is to cast a wide net and pull in a large set of data to analyze.
From there, matching algorithms get to work. The collected data is cross-referenced against the client‘s catalog to identify any files or snippets that align with their intellectual property. Any matches get flagged for further investigation by the copyright monitoring team.
But it‘s not just about finding audio matches. The data collection also focuses on surfacing key details about where and how music is being used. Crawler bots are directed to capture info like:
- Channel, account, or website names
- Audience or follower numbers
- Monetization or advertising setups
- Number of plays or views
- Location and company data
This situational info is hugely important for determining if a use case is a legitimate one covered by an existing license, or an unauthorized one requiring action. It‘s also key for calculating the scale and scope of royalties the client may be owed based on the distribution volume of their music.
Taking Action
Once unauthorized uses of music are identified, rights holders can pursue various courses of action to protect their intellectual property and secure the royalties they‘re due. Typically, the first step is reaching out to the offending platform or user to alert them of the violation and request proper licensing and reimbursement.
Many cases can be resolved at this stage, but some escalate further. If the initial request is ignored, rightsholders may have their legal teams get involved to apply added pressure and stakes. For serial violators or particularly high-value infringements, lawsuits seeking significant damages may be filed to reclaim royalties and deter continued misuse.
Some recent high-profile royalty battles have ended with eight-figure settlements being paid out by major streaming services. But more often, claims are handled out of court once offending parties are notified of the violation. The spectre of legal action is often enough to spur them to take corrective measures and make good on royalty obligations.
A More Transparent Future
As crucial as these enforcement efforts are, they‘re ultimately a reactive measure working to clean up messes after they‘ve already been made. The longer-term solution will require fundamental changes to how the music industry handles metadata and licensing. Thankfully, there are promising signs of progress on this front.
Efforts to establish a universal metadata schema and open-source music rights database are gaining steam. The goal is to create transparent, accessible infrastructure for identifying and tracking music as it moves across the digital world.
Emerging technologies like blockchain and NFTs also hold potential for more efficient, verifiable music metadata management. By creating immutable records of ownership and tamper-proof audit trails, these tools could help eradicate much of the murkiness that leads to misattribution and unpaid royalties.
With a more reliable metadata backbone in place, new monetization models that give artists and rights holders more direct control over how their music is used and paid for can flourish. Smart contracts and micro-payment systems can help ensure that all parties in the music value chain get their fair share. Data-driven market insights can empower copyright owners to make informed licensing decisions.
Conclusion
The path to perfect transparency in music royalties is a long and winding one – but much-needed change is underway. As metadata standards evolve and accountability measures take root, the industry‘s future looks bright for those who create and own music.
In the meantime, data collection will continue to be a powerful tool for tracking errant music usage and clawing back unpaid royalties. This mission goes beyond just lining artists‘ pocketbooks – it‘s about ensuring that the soundtrack to our lives is a sustainable one in the long run. Simply put, when music‘s value is recognized and rewarded, we all win.
