The Music Streaming Economy – Part 1: The International Music Streaming Boom

Twenty years ago, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) Online Music Report first mentioned music streaming as a potentially relevant source of revenue for the phonographic industry, which at the time was still dominated by recorded music sales. However, it was not until 2010 that music streaming became commercially relevant, and in the years that followed it became almost the only source of revenue for the record industry. This blog series traces the history of the music streaming economy and its major players from the 1990s to the present day. In the first part, the revenue boom of music streaming in the international phonographic market is summarised in figures and analysed in more detail.

AI in the Music Industry – Part 19: The Ambivalent Relationship Between Music Major and AI Companies

As we saw in part 14 of the series using the example of the AI company Anthropic, the music majors are already taking legal action against copyright infringements that they believe are taking place through the training and use of AI models. At the same time, however, they are also supporting projects such as the AI-generated completion of the Beatles’ song “Now and Then” and are looking to collaborate with technology companies to keep up with the latest developments around AI in music. In this concluding part of the ‘AI in the music industry’ series, we take a closer look at the majors’ ambivalent relationship with the use of artificial intelligence in the creation and distribution of music.

AI in the Music Industry – Part 18: Deep Fakes and Data Protection

We saw in part 17 of the series that voice clones such as ‘Fake Drake’ raise copyright issues, although the legal situation in the US and the EU is different. However, deep fakes go far beyond copyright and can affect a person’s privacy and therefore their general personal rights. In this part of the series on AI in the music industry, we will discuss how this can happen and why the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation is relevant in this context.