Data Infrastructure

Top songs are what attract capital. Music, and entertainment at large, is a hits driven business. This may be true, as most of the value magnetises to the ‘head’ of catalogs, but it doesn’t mean that everything else has no value. In fact- the truth is far from it. Large catalogs can offered history, predictability, and a level of institutional comfort that made underwriting easier- let alone the base level of recognizability and ‘icon’ status that marketing departments dream

Competitive advantage in music is often framed around ownership, but data provides an equally powerful advantage. Serious operators across the music ecosystem are all looking at broadly the same raw data inputs (keeping in mind last week’s look at how data is no longer a scarce resource)- with cloud infrastructure and AI flattening the technical barriers to entry. Data is no longer the differentiator it once was.

For years, conversations around music data have revolved around access- to global copyright databases, better royalty data, deeper DSP reporting (+ the terms of DSP licenses). Data in this framing is treated as a scarce resource- something hoarded, guarded, and used to justify competitive advantage. The great news is the tide has shifted in recent years, meaning this framing no longer holds.

For years music publishers have learned to live within a strange paradigm. Chatter around the industry is endlessly about innovation, data, efficiency and the collaboration required to realise gains for all. Yet for all the discussion, the data sets relied upon for collecting and attributing royalties continue to operate with significant limitations- none of which need to be spelled out here. Publishers, despite best efforts, often only discover issues after value has already

AI is leverage like humanity has never seen before- but it is amplifying both signal and noise. AI isn’t creating wisdom- it doesn’t make us smarter, or more insightful, or even necessarily more effective. It is simply scaling what already exists.

The music industry runs on identifiers. Without them, the complex ecosystem of recordings, compositions, rights, and royalties would quickly collapse into chaos (... more so than it already is). The two most critical identifiers are ISRC and ISWC- the codes that uniquely define distinct audio recordings and song compositions respectively. Their existence looks simple on the surface, but they represent both different philosophies and underpin key workflows and challenges in at

‘Artificial Intelligence’ is no longer a theoretical technology hovering on the horizon, but is quickly (and with ever increasing speed) being embedded into everyday workflows- powering products and increasingly shaping entire industries. For the music business, as for every other sector, the question is no longer if AI will matter but how it is being applied in practice today- and where it is likely to drive competitive advantage tomorrow.

Imagine trying to value a ring in a jewellery store, but wearing a blindfold. You can sense the outlines, feel the cut of the stone and setting, but the fine detail- the information that actually determines whether you’re about to buy a diamond or a dud- is obscured. That’s where many funds still find themselves today. Investment decisions are often made with incomplete or unreliable data. Acquisition packs are full of disparate (and static) spreadsheets