digitalmusic.org offers free white papers on various industry topics, all aimed at educating the reader of the current state of our marketplace, while offering ideas on how various segments of the industry can work together to advance the business of music. Click on the white paper title within the descriptions below to download the files.
MUSIC INDUSTRY STYLE GUIDE AIMS TO GET EVERYONE SELLING MUSIC ONLINE ON THE SAME PAGE WITH UNIFORM METADATA.
5.7.13 – digitalmusic.org, the home of music business association NARM’s digital initiatives, is looking to clean up and simplify the listing, ingestion, and management of music at digital retailers with its Music Industry Style Guide, released today during the Music Biz 2013 Metadata Summit. The document outlines a set of metadata guidelines that can be used by musicians, managers, and labels to improve data quality for artist, track, and album information through common naming conventions and data entry standards. This, in turn, will allow digital retailers to create a more efficient ingestion process for songs, albums, music videos, ringtones, and any other product that contains music metadata and make it easier for consumers to find what they are looking for, leading to increased sales. Download the style guide here.
Once you have reviewed the Guide, please provide us with your feedback and recommendations for version two by sharing your thoughts on the form at http://digitalmusic.org/metadata-feedback/
WHITE PAPER EXAMINES CURRENT FORMS OF FAN/ARTIST COMMUNICATION ON SOCIAL PLATFORMS
2.12.13 — digitalmusic.org is pleased to release “Social Visual Bookmarking: Using The Hashtag To Redefine The Fan Relationship.” Authored by Sperry Media with contributions from Interscope Records, Sideways Media, Topspin Media, and Universal Republic, the white paper examines the current forms of fan/artist communication on existing social platforms. Along the way, it highlights best practices, and offers suggestions to make future iterations of fan/artist collaboration smoother and more profitable, all through the lens of one component tying these various capabilities together—the hashtag. Download the white paper for free by completing the form here.
OUR NEW WHITE PAPER GIVES MUSIC STARTUPS THE INFO THEY NEED TO NEGOTIATE LICENSING DEAL
9.25.12 — digitalmusic.org is helping music startups and entrepreneurs get on the same page with the licensors whose content they need with a new white paper titled “The Innovation Paradox: How Licensing and Copyright Affect Digital Music Startups.” Written by David Touve, an Assistant Professor of Business at Washington and Lee University, the paper helps those with innovative ideas for the music industry get inside the heads of rights holders so they can work together to negotiate mutually acceptable agreements that allow their products to succeed.
The paper walks the reader through the complications in the copyright landscape over the last decade and explains howthose complications have affected the way that record labels, PROs, and other rights holders go about negotiating licensing deals with music startups. The paper concludes that both sides of the table must work together in a process called “negotiated innovation,” where each side is aware of the other’s motivations and willing to work toward creating a new product that can thrive in the marketplace. Read more.
NEW “METAMILLIONS” WHITE PAPER EXAMINES METADATA COLLECTION, CURATION, CONTEXTUALIZATION
6.14.12 — digitalmusic.org is pleased to announce the latest iteration in our white paper series, “MetaMillions: Turning Bits Into Bucks for the Music Industry Through the Standardization of Archival and Contextual Metadata.”
The white paper examines the current state of metadata collection, curation and contextualization as it relates to industry-specific processes and how this data is being shared (or not) with third-party services/retailers. The purpose was to present a business rationale for establishing a new system for metadata by showcasing the sales, marketing and other monetization benefits of a more standardized framework, and the steps necessary to create one. Read more.
DIGITALMUSIC.ORG, TAG, AND BILLBOARD LAUNCH WHITE PAPER ON MUSIC & TV
5.18.12 — digitalmusic.org has teamed up with Billboard and TAG Strategic to produce the new white paper “What’s That Song?: Improving Music Discovery on Television.” Written by Billboard Senior Editorial Analyst Glenn Peoples and based on the “Music & TV: Enabling Discovery for the Connected Consumer” session at NARM and digitalmusic.org’s Music Biz 2012, the paper details the opportunities and challenges presented by music discovery on television, and lays out several recommendations for how to improve monetization and engagement.
“Television is becoming more and more important to music discovery, and it was great to get together with all the best minds on the subject and talk things through in a substantive way,” said Bill Wilson, Vice President of Digital Strategy and Development at NARM and digitalmusic.org. “We think this white paper will go a long way toward harnessing TV’s full potential as a music-discovery resource and are excited to share it with the world.”
Read more.