For music rights to be shared equitably, standardisation for inputting metadata is required, yet until technology takes over, it will fall to people recording music to have a routine to ensure accurate information is enter, so they get paid all that is due.
An article on The Verge website discusses the increasingly vexed issue of independent workers in the music industry not receiving payment for their contribution to a song or piece of music.
The article touches on two distinct areas in relation to Haphazard Business, standardisation and routine (or ritual).
For music rights to be shared equitably among those contributing to a new record requires some kind of standardised method, which remains elusive. Until technology can take over keeping track of individual contributions, artists, producers, songwriters and others all need to have some kind of ritual to remind themselves of the importance of ensuring the correct metadata is entered at every stage of the process.
In reality, the process is frequently more rushed and haphazard — artists and labels hurry the process along in order to get songs out, and metadata is frequently cleaned up later as mistakes are noticed. ”A lot of these credits and negotiations don’t happen on a single piece of paper, and also happen after the fact,” says Joe Conyers III, co-founder of digital rights management platform Songtrust.
This article feeds into previous provocations here on some of the broader issues that surround standardisation and routine (ritual), and this subject looks likely to become a major avenue of investigation over coming months.
This post relates to Standardising Life and Haphazard Routine.
Image: Illustration by Alex Castro and Grayson Blackmon | The Verge
John M
Deahl, Dani. 29 May 2019, “METADATA IS THE BIGGEST LITTLE PROBLEM PLAGUING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY: It’s A Crisis That Has Left, By Some Estimations, Billions On The Table Unpaid To Musicians”, The Verge, Report, online 1 June 2019 {https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/29/18531476/music-industry-song-royalties-metadata-credit-problems}
Haphazard Business 