Music streaming metadata report and project update
This report presents evidence and insights on music streaming metadata, with the full report available soon on the Social Science Research Network and PDFs obtainable by contacting [email protected]. It emphasizes that under the UK Industry Agreement, high-quality metadata is essential to properly credit and pay music makers, yet current metadata is often incomplete or inaccurate, especially for songwriters, causing delays or non-payment. To drive improvements, the Technical Solutions Group is reviewing workflows, standards and technologies and developing KPIs to measure metadata flows in the digital supply chain, including a pilot to test KPI deliverability across the industry and anonymized data analysis by the IPO. The findings come from creators, publishers, labels, CMOs, distributors, DSPs, metadata firms and other experts, and a further update on the KPI project will be provided in due course.
A report summarising evidence and insights on music streaming metadata.
This HTML document is an executive summary. The full report will be available at the Social Science Research Network website soon.
To request a PDF copy, please contact [email protected].
As outlined in the UK Industry Agreement on Music Streaming Metadata, good quality metadata is essential to making sure music makers are accurately credited and paid.
But metadata is not as accurate or complete as it should be, in particular in relation to songwriters and their song or composition. Incomplete or inaccurate metadata can lead to significant delays to creators being paid for the use of their works, and in some cases not being paid at all.
To help influence improvements in music streaming metadata, the agreement established a Technical Solutions Group (TSG). This group brings together technical experts from across the music industry to review current workflows, standards and technologies. The group will make recommendations to improve metadata delivery, and develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure metadata flows in the digital supply chain.
To support the work of the TSG, the IPO commissioned a team of consultants to gather evidence and insights on metadata in music streaming. We are pleased to publish today a report that sets out their findings.
This report is based on evidence gathered from:
- one-to-one and small workshop interviews with industry stakeholders
- written submissions, including volumetric data
- further input from TSG members and other experts
The evidence received comes from creators, publishers, record labels, collective management organisations (CMOs), distributors, aggregators, digital service providers (DSPs), metadata solutions firms and other experts.
Findings and opinions are those of the consultant team and not necessarily the views of the IPO or the government.
Key Performance Indicator Project
The Technical Solutions Group (TSG) has been developing a number of KPIs to help benchmark occurrences of the core data set from the Agreement. The full report and volumetrics have helped inform this process. This will include methodology to support regular data gathering to measure progress.
The TSG has developed KPI measurements as part of a pilot exercise to test the deliverability of this approach across a representative sample of the music industry. The pilot involves the following categories of KPIs:
- aggregate (quantitative) - incidence of Core Data Set within different exchanges in supply chain
- sampled (qualitative) - create ‘true picture’ of Work and Recording data and compare with different exchanges in supply chain
The data submitted by the relevant parties is anonymised and analysed by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). The TSG, with support from the IPO is currently testing these KPI measures. We will provide a further update on this project in due course.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/music-streaming-metadata-report-and-project-update
