OpenMusE

On the 14th of March, The University of Amsterdam / Institute of Information Law held a workshop on “Metadata mainstreaming in the music industries. Data spaces and beyond” in the context of the OpenMusE project. The workshop was held in a hybrid format (online & on-site at the University of Amsterdam), bringing together legal scholars and practitioners and selected policymakers as part of many workshops held to inform the public about this issue.

The main topic of discussion was the challenges posed by inaccurate and incomplete music metadata, which hinder content discovery, licensing, and revenue distribution and can lead to digital piracy and bias against European works. The workshop aimed to explore solutions for improving and harmonizing music data and to discuss how legislative tools within the EU could be used to enhance music metadata.

The workshop started with an introduction to the challenges of music metadata, the problem and known issues, followed by presentations on copyright data studies and regulatory initiatives at both member state and international levels. After a break, discussions moved to the data spaces initiative and broader data and digital legislation, examining current statuses, initiatives concerning media and cultural heritage, and regulatory approaches that could aid copyright data improvement.

Post-lunch, the legal provisions in the copyright acquis were discussed, including specific articles of the CDSMD and CRMD, and the Orphan Works Directive. The workshop concluded with a session on the need for higher-quality metadata, exploring regulatory approaches to achieve this and addressing interoperability and standardization challenges.

Following up on the topics discussed during the workshop and the input provided by the participants, the involved researchers at The University of Amsterdam produced a policy brief with preliminary findings.

Keywords

music, songwriting, ecosystem, licensing, download, streaming, record, freelancers, market,  data collection, observatory, open