Collaboration as a Competitive Edge

Photo by Ardian Lumi

The music industry has never been short on creativity- but in the smaller Publishing niche it’s often been sadly short on collaboration. Not between songwriters, producers, or artists- but between the organisations, systems, and standards that underpin how the business actually serves these creators.

For an industry built on relationships, too much of our data and infrastructure operates like a walled garden. Metadata lives in silos and is often considered proprietary or a defensible moat rather than a shared tapestry that we all have a hand in maintaining (much like the open source software vs. proprietary system discussion).

We’ve already seen the first fruits of more open-handed policies, and unification by collaboration- ICE between PRS/GEMA/STIM and The MLC’s transparency and open database. In a world where AI and automation are rewriting what’s possible, the real competitive edge won’t come from guarding data, but rather from sharing it in smarter ways.

Siloed Metadata Hurts Everyone

Of course, this comes down to song data- the DNA of our industry. Ownership, splits, identifiers, work-recording matches- this is the information that ensures creators are paid fairly and on time.

So much of this is still fragmented across proprietary and closed databases, where gatekeepers are often reluctant to share what they have on file- even with the very creators who are directly involved, implicated and reliant upon it for payment!

A parallel example: Most publishers and societies still rely on the CWR (Common Works Registration) format for communicating works data, maintained by CISAC and a closed working group. It’s functional, but was designed in the 1990s and has significant limitations (e.g. share % can be interpreted, and is used, ambiguously). Updating, correcting, or transmitting nuanced rights data through CWR is clunky at best- especially in a global, multi-society environment where the same song will have dozens of localised versions of its ownership and collection metadata.

Contrast that with the DDEX (Digital Data Exchange) family of standards. DDEX offers a more flexible, structured way to share works data (via formats like MWN and BWARM), built for the realities of a digital-first world, and in a modular way that can be easily evolved and updated. It can carry richer metadata, support more complex ownership scenarios, and integrate more seamlessly into modern platforms.

Adoption is tricky to achieve- much like a currency. If we don’t all adopt (are forced to) there is no trust that others will, so our current status quo is we fall to the lowest common denominator technology. What is the most adopted technology, rather than what is the best moving forward- which of course means we are hamstrung by the technical investments made by the least in the ecosystem. Not all partners can receive DDEX messages, so publishers would have to maintain dual workflows when implementing newer standards such as DDEX. The result is further duplication of effort and inconsistency of data- two things that are kryptonite for efficiency.

When Done Together, It Can Work for All

To be clear: the music industry can collaborate effectively- and when it does, the results are transformative.

• DDEX itself is a great example: a group of labels, publishers, societies, and DSPs coming together to create common standards for data exchange. It’s not perfect, but it’s the closest thing we have to a universal data language.

  
  

• ICE (the joint venture between PRS, STIM, and GEMA) combines licensing and processing capabilities across multiple territories for multiple societies, reducing friction for digital services and improving efficiency for rights-holders.

  
  

• The MLC in the US, while far from without challenges, has centralised the administration of most mechanical rights for digital uses- and provided (by law) a public database, a solid enough proxy for the work matches of all recordings live on DSPs.

These initiatives didn’t happen because any one organisation could solve the problem alone (with the exception of the MLC, where statutory requirements set the playing field). They happened because the pain points were too big, too costly, and too damaging to ignore, particularly across a wide breadth of industry participants.

In every case, the benefits have extended well beyond the initial stakeholders. A well-designed collaborative solution ripples outward- improving accuracy, reducing disputes, and ultimately, helping creators get paid faster.

Shared Infrastructure is the Next Frontier

As AI and automation become core tools in the music business, the need for clean, connected data will only grow. ML models will eventually come to rely on metadata for attribution (likely in the output rather than the training)- inaccurate or incomplete metadata will only accelerate proliferation of errors. 

Shared infrastructure isn’t about “giving away” a competitive advantage, but rather building common rails that everyone can run on- so that the real competition can happen in how well you serve your clients- the writers and artists.

In the early days of Britain’s railways, different companies built their tracks to different gauges (the distance between the rails). A train built for one gauge simply couldn’t run on another. Journeys that should have been seamless were interrupted by unloading passengers and goods, switching carriages, and losing time. It wasn’t until the industry agreed on a standard gauge that the railway network could truly connect the country- unlocking its full potential for commerce, travel, and growth.

Right now, the music industry’s “railway gauge problem” is the sharing of standardised metadata. Unless we standardise the sharing of works data, ownership splits, and recording matches we’ll keep hitting the same costly, time-wasting breaks in the journey.

Interoperable platforms- where rights data can be securely exchanged between trusted parties- mean less time spent on reconciliation and more time spent on strategic growth. When those platforms are built with open, standardised data formats, everyone benefits from faster onboarding, lower integration costs, and reduced duplication of work.

For decades, many industry players have treated their proprietary systems and “closed” data as a competitive moat- not to be shared. In some cases, that’s understandable- investing heavily in technology means wanting to protect that investment.

But in a market where the biggest revenue threats come from other shared existential shifts (e.g. generative AI), our biggest gains will come from the industry pulling together in the same direction.

A Vision for a More Collaborative Music Ecosystem

Everyone has always dreamed of an ecosystem where:

• Every work, recording, publisher and writer can be securely referenced through interoperable IDs

  
  

• Metadata can be updated in one flow, automatically to all authorised partners-  with no manual re-keying or risk of mismatch (I won’t mention GRD here…)

  
  

• Publishers, labels, and societies can spend less time each individually processing the same data, and more time (and money) supporting creators

These basics even provide the foundation for further future developments, beyond reducing legacy issues. AI tools can analyse complete, accurate datasets to identify missing income, spot licensing opportunities, or forecast trends with confidence.

The technology exists. The standards exist. The willingness? That’s up to us.

The real competitive edge isn’t in how well ‘your’ data is guarded, but in how well you connect it to the world around you. If we can shift our mindset from protectionism to collaboration, we can build a music industry where innovation accelerates, inefficiencies shrink, and creators are better served than ever before.