Music database efforts are generally intended to enable the commercial licensing process, but they should not supplant the judgment of licensors or incorporate licensing itself. In addition, ownership claims should not be treated as disputes under national laws and should fall outside the scope of the music registry. A centralized database helps improve the efficiency of the commercial licensing process, but it should not replace the due process or the judgment of the licensors. In the 21st century, a global music registry is needed. There are many questions that remain regarding the path ahead for music registry efforts. Arguably, regional and global synchronization of existing databases is the key to making publishers, labels and digital services compliant Notably, the type of database discussed in this research-based analysis is Gracenote.
The Global Music Data from Gracenote is the most comprehensive set of factual and descriptive information about the most popular music worldwide. It enables entertainment services to easily find, discover, and connect to more of the music that they love (Johnson, 2019). Additionally, the Music Song Registry database is an online platform that enables music community rights holders to register and license their music globally. Ideally, there are currently two international music registry efforts that have failed. These are the International Music Registry and the Global Repertoire Database. A centralized comprehensive database for music rights holders and licensing agreements is a prerequisite for creating a transparent and efficient global music marketplace. The goal of DotMusic is to provide an efficient and standardized way for music rights holders to locate and manage their information. This will enable them to continue to generate revenue from their music on a global level. The music song registry is a collaborative effort between the music community and other stakeholders. It will be managed by a multi-stakeholder governance board. Due to the complexity of the project and the need for collaboration with various key stakeholder groups, DotMusic is seeking to establish a dialogue with the music community.
The world needs a comprehensive global music registry that will allow people to easily find and pay for music. This will enable faster, easier, and more secure licensing and payment. The concept of voluntary attribution and enumeration has various advantages, such as transparency and efficiency. It is also beneficial for music rights holders and those who use music. The importance of establishing an accurate record of ownership is very important to the proper recognition and use of property rights. Unfortunately, many music companies have a hard time finding their rightful owners (Liu, 2019). Today, even the most efficient and effective music administration can be very duplicative. This can lead to inefficient and costly tracking of information related to the same work. Due to the complexity of the music industry, it can be hard to keep track of all the data that’s related to it. This has led to the rise of lawsuits and low streaming income for artists. Moreover, the historic practice of music licensing and distribution has many shortcomings. One of these is that the information is not synced across various platforms, which leads to the unauthorized removal of music.
Essentially, even the most efficient music administration can be very duplicative. It can be carried out by those who can least afford to pay for the necessary information. The challenge for an Internet music service entrepreneur is finding and licensing multiple rights from multiple music rights holders in every jurisdiction. Ideally, the competition in the music industry is very stiff, as each individual has its own set of rights and geographical location. Database fragmentation leads to the difficulty of finding and licensing multiple rights. Every sound recording contains multiple copyrighted works, such as the musical composition and the liner notes. Ideally, before you can distribute or perform a recording, you need to first clear all of the rights associated with it. Basically, these are the basic copyright principles that apply to traditional music products. Due to the nature of the products, clearing rights did not present many obstacles when it came to selling a product. In Europe, there are more than 40 countries that require clearance of single recordings (Neumann, 2018). This is because the international treaty on copyright has already abandoned the requirement for registration. Conclusively, there are various proprietary music registry services that offer various features, but none of these are global or link all the various works that a new business would need to clear. For instance, if a user wants to know the owner of a song performed on a recording, they cannot determine the database that contains the two works. Essentially, even if everything works as intended, getting it right oftentimes does not always lead to duplicative expenses. A healthy industry can only be beneficial for the use of music (Xian, 2018). The US compulsory blanket license, which is used for digital broadcast music services and non-interactive webcasts. This license requires that the featured artists be paid. Finally, none of the current music registry services are complete enough to support the smooth operation of new digital music services. The WHO, which is part of the UN, has proposed establishing an international music registry that will provide comprehensive and global coverage for all rights and geographical details.
References
Johnson, C. (2019, September 23). Music & Data: It’s Time to Join the 21st Century. Retrieved August 29, 2021, from Medium website: https://medium.com/verifimedia/music-data-its-time-to-join-the-21st-century-88cbd8dca14f
Liu, Y. (2019). A study on the unstructured music database—Taking the Bo people’s music and its music iconography database as an example. MATEC Web of Conferences, 22(7), 01025. https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/20152201025
Neumann, J. (2018). Music Data Analysis: Foundations and Applications. Ed. by Claus Weihs, Dieter Jannach, Igor Vatolkin, and Guenter Rudolph. Music and Letters, 99(3), 502–504. https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/gcy060
Xian, R. (2018). In Pursuit of a Global Music Registry | Future of Music Coalition. Retrieved August 29, 2021, from www.futureofmusic.org website: http://www.futureofmusic.org/blog/2012/06/27/pursuit-global-music-registry
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