The music industry cannot go into the future in reverse.

”Fake artists, ’fake streams’, and crimes involving music streaming, assisted by outdated technology, have become an integrated part of the music industry. A significant problem is that the legal entities who knowingly and unknowingly rig playlists avoid paying the individuals whose music consumers prefer to listen to. The reason for this is the lagging infrastructure of the streaming market that was copied from an older era and must be updated to avoid becoming counterproductive or, in the worst case, completely collapsing.

The fact is that technology that enables transparency already exists and can thereby provide insight and power to both creators and consumers. Unfortunately, a powerful and conservative music industry often stands in the way of innovation and progress. The industry is now trying to ’back into the future’, to quote the Pirate Party, when they incorrectly (now proven beyond all doubt) claimed in 2011 those laws protecting those who create and perform music would curb growth and development in the tech industry …

As is well known, individuals create music, but the systems established by countries and companies to compensate these individuals are built in very different ways. If we were to compare the giants of the music industry to banks, a few bank giants would be very pleased with their revenues, which break records year after year — but lack systems with 100% precision to pay out these revenues to the correct bank accounts. Instead, a large portion of the money generated each record year is paid to those who already receive the most allocation. It is a kind of circular reasoning where creators’ royalties are based on shares of the total instead of the streams consumed by paying listeners.

However, diversity is not created by the few but by the many. This diversity creates the great values of the music industry, both soft and hard.

Introducing The Fair Music Project
This systemic error is why the European Commission's Creative Europe funding now supports the Fair Music Project's international collaboration. NIM (New Internet Media) runs the project with IMC (International Music Council) and SKAP.

The Fair Music Project results from many years of discussions and work with music creators’ rights, focusing on compensation and recognition. The project aims to offer a concrete and improved compensation model compared to the systems currently dominating the market. Unlike recent developments, where services have chosen to remove altogether compensation for those who do not reach a certain number of clicks, Fair Music can instead ensure compensation for every listening (so-called user-centric) through New Internet Media’s system. An approach that most consumers already believe is standard but which in reality, is far from the truth. With the help of immutable blockchain technology, it is also possible to transparently guarantee the origin of songs, thereby making it difficult for both fake artists and fake streams.

In addition to NIM’s technical innovation, the project also includes capacity building for music creators and industry actors, and advocacy work around the importance of fair music practice services in both the public and political spheres. Swedish creators, through Skap, will be the first in the world to beta-test this system.