With technology sweeping throughout the world, businesses cutting across industries are fast going into massive transformations. The same is true for the Indian music industry which is on the cusp of a major overhaul in its existing business model and practices. Players in the Indian music industry are closely following technology developments and integrating these advances to capture target audiences.
New technologies have become even more relevant in capturing the attention of the younger generations who have grown up with them. This adoption of technology is having a big impact on existing businesses, and opportunities for newcomers in the space, and are also paving the way for an interesting future. Let’s dive a little deeper into this.
Democratised Opportunities: Thanks to the adoption of technology, social networking platforms have become new breeding grounds for artists, musicians, and content creators among others. The ease of access has allowed many artists to display their craft for the world the see, and many famous artists got their start on platforms such as YouTube. In the West, you have examples such as Justin Bieber and Charlie Puth, and in India, there are examples such as Jonita Gandhi. Anyone with an interest in music can create, communicate, and deliver the creation without needing the crutches of big streaming houses, production houses, or music labels. No wonder we are witnessing a fast emergence of aspiring creators across music formats, platforms, and genres.
Licensing Platforms: These platforms are causing ripples in the music industry due to a wide variety of things. Firstly, they are providing content creators, filmmakers, media production houses, etc., a fair way to license music that has cleared for use across a wide variety of platforms such as social media, OTTs, TV shows, movies, ads, etc. What this has done is allowed the customers of music in aforementioned contexts the option to pick and choose exactly the kind of music they want for a mood, scenario, a particular location, etc. Because this music is licensed, the creators who use this music don’t have to worry about copyright claims or any other legal issues, and the platforms that offer such kind of music also are making good returns by offering music for licensing.
The impact of this in financial terms is quite evident across the breadth of the industry. Large labels such as Warner Music Group’s 2021 annual report mentioned that the music publishing industry generated $5.9 billion in revenue out of which 17 percent or over $1 billion was due to licensing deals. Furthermore, Universal Music Group reported that their income from ‘licensing and other activities’ jumped to 896 million euros in 2021 from 776 million euros in 2020. While these are global numbers, the sync licensing industry in India has seen considerable growth too.
Licensing platforms are also ensuring that musicians and producers who actually create the music that is uploaded there are adequately compensated for their music being used across multiple channels. This has opened up a new source of revenue for musicians and due to this, many musicians are not only open to the idea of licensing their music but also actively putting it up on platforms such as Hoopr, India’s first music licensing marketplace.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): The use of AI and ML has witnessed an exponential rise in the music industry of late.
Firstly, there has been a huge increase in the utilisation of AI to actually create music. Technology as a whole is at this point extraordinarily capable o creating interesting melodies, coming up with harmonic patterns and sequences that can either be quite straightforward or be deep enough to satisfy the musings of the most ardent jazz and Avant Garde fans. Also, because AI engines have an almost infinite repository of music that has already been made, they can create new music that specifically does not plagiarise or infringe upon anything that is currently out there. Many such platforms have come up and are actually offering music made by algorithms for use by people.
AI and ML are also being used to create a better listening experience for the consumer. These technologies are used to analyse the listening patterns of users and then curate personalised playlists that are better aligned with the tastes and preferences of subscribers. Further, these contemporary innovations are also helping in the targeted distribution of songs by designing specific codes and programs for the music industry. Many music streaming platforms are also using AI and ML to optimise search engines, enhance their storage capacity, and improve their services to achieve more market share.
Metaverse Music: Taking technology adoption to an all-new level, music in the metaverse category is spawning a range of economies including ones belonging to cryptocurrencies, Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain technology. The scope and horizon of metaverse music are so large that many big names in the music industry including artists, composers, and lyricists are jumping on this bandwagon. The dawn of Web 3.0 has brought along aspects such as virtual concerts, digital artists, and NFTs bands among others. This in many ways has opened up new doors of growth, monetisation, and the ability to personalise experiences across the board for both, creators and fans.
Technology has always been at the forefront of bringing about change in the music industry. Recent developments such as the ones highlighted earlier are poised to bring about a sea change in the creation, distribution, and consumption of music. That being said, I’m hopeful for great oversight and fairness in terms of issues such as copyrights and royalties since that is in many ways an important area that technology can contribute constructively to. Furthermore, I’m quite optimistic about the growth that technology will bring about not only in music but also with regard to the creator economy. Things are indeed looking up.
— The author, Gaurav Dagaonkar, is the CEO and Co-founder of Hoopr. All views expressed are personal.
