Streaming Music Business Challenges

Addressing music data challenges today can lead to a more profitable tomorrow

Prior to the internet, music was delivered in physical form, and the information about that music contained on that 8-track, cassette, LP, or CD was confined to the packaging and materials included with the release.

The internet brought about a new way to listen to and deliver music; the MP3 codec. Digital music files could now be shared between people via peer to peer sites and over networks.

As internet bandwidth increased, streaming files became the preferred method of consuming music. Users decided that they would rather just have access to music instead of owning it.

And then streaming music came along and changed EVERYTHING.

Join this on-demand webinar hosted by Vistex and MusicBiz where we’ll be discussing the current status for streaming music business models, its benefits, and challenges.

Streaming Music Business Models

• YouTube – #1 source of music listening in the world.
• Pandora – a net radio type of model
• Spotify – infinite music collection

Benefits of Streaming Platform

• Availability
• Low Cost/No Cost (ad supported options)
• More content
• Ease of distribution
• Has brought about a decrease in piracy

Challenges (for the Music Industry) with Streaming Music

• Hard to store/organize – requires lots of digital infrastructure
• Difficult for computers to process and aggregate micro penny payments from digital service providers.
• Fluctuating value of streams
• Difficult to regulate/enforce unauthorized use
• Old artist contracts don’t address this type of revenue

We will also explore tough questions that are weighing on music publishers and artists minds. , Will people stop actually owning music? Will artists be fairly compensated for their work? Join us for the latest insights in streaming content trends.

Vistex offers solutions for big data and streaming sales, including:

• Better Reporting – Statement Portal and customizable analytics
• Cloud based – Today’s music companies have employees all over the world many working from home
• Compression/Aggregating Data – Micro-penny sales lines can be aggregated which reduces rounding errors and improves royalty calculation results.
• Performance – fully scalable for big data streaming sales files. Today many sales contain millions of individual sales lines. Each line might only represent 1/10,000 of a cent. This type of volume is very difficult for conventional software to manage.