Data Won't Save You

Competitive advantage in music is often framed around ownership (... not least by me!). If you've read these posts for a while it will also be clear that data provides an equally powerful advantage.

Photo by Guillaume Bleyer

Nowadays however, 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… even for those that are leveraging it. If everyone can see roughly the same data, competitive advantage has to be dug out in other ways.

Data, Data, Everywhere

Ten years ago, simply finding scaled global music data was genuinely hard- I had to spend a LOT of time hunting for the songwriter app we built at Creatr Club. There was no Global Repertoire database (... there still isn’t, but again that’s a story for another time), and minimal accessible 3rd party sources. At the time, the ability to aggregate registration and usage data across territories would produce a meaningful, material advantage because it was difficult to do.

This has evolved in the decade since. Access, and well as modern data tooling has made it possible for well-resourced organisations to pull in vast volumes of information. The mechanics of storage, processing and querying are no disqualifying hurdles- turning what was once a specialist capability into table stakes.

That doesn’t mean the work is trivial. It means the difficulty is no longer differentiating. We’ve reached the point where having “lots of data” says very little about how sophisticated an organisation actually is.

Content might generate value, but effectively understanding that value directly leads to being able to capture it. Infrastructure determines how this happens. Competitive differentiation is becoming wider through this- above and beyond the content itself.

It’s similar on the demand side. Streaming platform ‘moats’ aren’t in exclusive content, but  recommendation systems, analytics and algorithms. Looking beyond music the story is the same- Fintech wasn’t transformed by access to capital, but by payments infrastructure and data architecture. Music is now following that same path- albeit more slowly, and with more legacy complexity to unwind.

Creating Understanding 

As capital does continue to flow into music, the spread in outcomes between seemingly similar acquisitions is widening. Two funds buying comparable catalogs at comparable prices can generate very different returns. Not because the assets differ materially, or even because of proactive marketing efforts- but because underlying infrastructure does.

Catalogs might be assets, but it is infrastructure that creates leverage around them. Infrastructure is what allows seasoned publishing expertise to be applied at volume. In a sense it is the utopian ‘coming together’ of man and machine- perfected human-in-the-loop.

Leveraging experience and interpretation of available data at scale, in conjunction with AI, is now the key. It’s amazing seeing knowledge pour forth from an experienced catalog manager when you start to dig into their catalogs. They know every tiny detail, and can spot discrepancies a mile away. They just know, but have historically lacked the tooling to apply that ‘expert eye’ across any sort of significant volume.

Also, acquired catalogs don’t come with that 'lived' expertise. It is this other side of the coin that is so vital- the nuance and understanding for why a catalog is why it is, and what can and can’t be solved.

Catalogs arrive only as data. They move hands without that ‘set of notes’ that comes with the experience of managing them for years at a time. It is left to the acquirer to sift through the data that has arrived and discern any nuance. How do we synthesise this lived experience? How do we do it with agility, and only using the raw ingredients that incoming data provides? This capability matters as much as, if not more than, sourcing the deal in the first place.

Scale without systems is not strength- it’s risk. As catalogs grow, data gaps widen and become more expensive. Legacy workflows that functioned at smaller volumes fracture under modern reporting complexity and volume. Maintaining a human’s learned wisdom at scale is the deep challenge- with discernment more critical than ever given the ‘noise’ amplified by AI.

Operational maturity in this vertical directly shapes commercial performance, becoming one of the subtler ways in which “sophistication” is really demonstrated. It's not about having access to numbers, but in knowing which numbers matter, which don’t, and which can and can't be changed. The most effective organisations are not those drowning in data, but those with clear tooling and precision to generate material benefit from it- particularly knowing its limitations.

Data Alone is Not Enough

It’s a given at this point that data is a necessity- but it is no longer sufficient.

As music continues to professionalise as an asset class, advantage will accrue to those who invest not just in catalogs, but in the infrastructure beneath them that empowers human insight. It is in the unseen systems that help experienced catalog managers turn raw information into understanding, and understanding into action- all at scale.