“The importance of the role of Music Recognition Technology (MRT) in the music industry today and in the future cannot be overstated. There are a growing number of MRT services which facilitate accurate music reporting for DJ events, TV / radio broadcasts and UGC streaming, which then enable more accurate royalty and music usage payments to be made to the creators and rights holders of the music played.
As the music industry evolves, we are constantly innovating to adapt. Such innovations have revolutionised almost every aspect of the music industry for both the consumer and creator experience. Now musicians can create, share and market their music faster than ever before. Streaming services have granted listeners instant and constant access to almost any music they can imagine at their fingertips.
Despite rapid developments in the industry over the last two decades, accurate royalty distribution is an area that is still trailing behind. The fact that there are millions stuck in a black box of unaccounted royalties has begged the question: if a song is played, is it actually recognised, processed and paid? Thankfully we already have a technological solution to this: MRT (Music Recognition Technology).
What Is MRT?
MRT is traditionally a matching algorithm whereby the audio in a programme or performance is compared to a database of source recordings. When a song is ingested into an MRT database, its audio fingerprint is generated. This works by chopping a digital sample into tiny fragments, analysing them separately, giving each fragment a signature and then combining those signatures into a unique fingerprint. Audio from live sets, television, radio and online music services globally is then scanned for the audio fingerprints in their database, identified and reported back to their partners.
Whilst this is no longer a new technology, MRT still isn't being harnessed to its full potential. In fact, MRT companies have been around for over 15 years and many rights holders have only discovered them quite recently.
Key Industry Voices on MRT
“MRT doesn't just help PRS for Music identify the repertoire of our own members, it also helps the members of any other PRO when their music is used by our licensees. We've also taken a very collaborative approach by working with PPL on MRT projects, so that recording artists and labels benefit as well as creators of music and music publishers.
“Mixcloud is the only platform which has granular track level reporting for the music within radio shows, DJ mixes, podcasts, etc. With our unique label licensing agreements and Mixcloud Select monetisation program, we make sure that not only a channel owner, but the underlying artists and tracks who get played, get paid.
“Soundmouse provides music reporting services for many of the world's leading media organisations and leading collecting societies. There is a direct relationship between the data that is provided by the rights owner, the music report in which that data is contained and the royalty payments made by the collecting societies.
How Does MRT Ensure People Are Getting Paid Better?
By offering clarity to music usage reporting the percentage of music that goes unreported minimises, which in turn maximises the percentage of rightfully attributed royalties. In some cases, music usage reports for distribution have multiplied the number of unique works that were distributed for 5 fold, meaning more artists, composers and producers receive the money that's rightfully theirs.
Why Does It Matter?
“A large group (around 500) of electronic music writers who were not on the distribution radar in previous years, are now making a minimum of 50% of their livelihoods through DJ Monitor data.
The electronic music scene, particularly live DJ sets, exemplifies the value of MRT. Prior to music recognition technology, PRO staff would either have to physically visit the club, take samples of the tracks played and try to manually work out payments from that, or rely on the DJ or club to provide their full setlist. Such processes were a detriment to music rights holders, as poor reporting meant they weren't receiving the royalties they deserved.
Benefits of MRT Integration
- Transparency and auditability: MRT increases transparency in royalty payouts and reduces friction amongst rights holders.
- A fairer distribution model: Providing granular music usage data empowers smaller rights owners to take control of how their music is reported.
- Comprehensive listener data: With the shift from ownership to access, there is now a magnitude of global listening data that can inform marketing strategy.
- Future proofing: Ensuring your catalogue is registered with MRT companies will be crucial to any rights owner as new platforms and services emerge.
- Copyright protection: MRT is also utilised to enhance the protection of song copyright for artists and labels.
What Is the Future of MRT?
From a technological perspective, MRT has the scope to be even further developed. Artificial intelligence will become more important to make matching algorithms more efficient. New platforms and an increased focus on revenue streams that exclude live means MRT has both the space and the purpose to grow.
The standardisation of processes incorporating MRT across the industry will inevitably replace a lot of the manual matching that currently occurs. Ensuring that catalogue is registered with the companies who have these contracts will be crucial to any rights owners.
How rightsHUB Is Working with Rightsholders and MRT Companies
At rightsHUB we are always looking for ways to make managing music rights data and assets seamless. We see MRT as a key part of the infrastructure of today's music industry and something that is going to become even more important as new services launch and existing services become more efficient. Being able to manage and deliver data to MRT companies at the right time is of huge importance and rights holders should not be relying on partners to do this; it should be something that they control directly.
Holding, managing, delivering and adapting this data to meet current and future requirements is essential to future proofing your business. Rightsholders who get on top of this now will be at the forefront of technology-driven change.