Music Rights Management in the Digital Age

In recent years, an exciting inter-disciplinary field of study has emerged which seeks to determine the wide-ranging impacts of internet technologies on the music industry (see Arditi, 2015; Hracs et al., 2016; Leyshon, 2014; Meier, 2016; Morris, 2015; Watson, 2014; Wikstom 2013). However, the rapidity of change in the music industry presents a significant challenge for academic research, and there remain significant gaps in our understanding. The focus of this project is to fill a significant gap in contemporary music industry research, namely that of digital rights management and monetisation.
The issue of developing an in-depth understanding of digital rights management is not limited to academia, but is also significant within the industry itself. The issues around collecting rights across a multitude of digital platforms, ranging from streaming services to social media to YouTube, as well as variations in music rights regime across different territories, make music rights management a complex and constantly changing business. The collaboration with Sentric Music, a highly successful independent music rights management company based in Liverpool which represents 85,000 song writers, offers the unique opportunity for academics and professionals to come together to make a significant step forward with regards to our understanding of this crucial part of the value chain in the music economy, both from conceptual and applied standpoints.
The broad aim is to undertake a detailed academic examination of music right management in the digital age, underpinned with applied research and analysis within the collaborating organisation. More specifically, the particular innovation of this proposed project centres on the relationship between music rights management and artists' social media and online profiles. Recent research on independent music artists (Hracs, 2015) has demonstrated that in a period where fewer artists are signed to contracts with labels, and where music is distributed online into a highly crowded marketplace, independent artists (along with their managers, although artists frequently undertake their own management) must actively work to raise their profile. Given the rise of social media platforms and online photograph and video platforms, of particular importance are online audience building, fan-interaction and aesthetic labour, activities which are both time-consuming and may involve the development of collaborations beyond the music industry (Hracs 2010, 2013, 2014), as well as of course the traditional activities of recording and performing. Music publishing companies such as the collaborating organisation Sentric Music, allow artists to collect royalties from songs, videos, live performance, and synchronisation. Yet, what remains poorly understood, even within the industry, is if a connection exists between the activities of artists online, in particular through social media, and the generation of income through rights management.

Key research questions
1) How has the digitisation of music impacted upon music publishing and music rights collection, and how have music publishing companies altered business models/strategies in response?
2) In what ways does an artist's online profile and their building of, and interaction with, a fan-base, especially through social media, impact on the income generated to them via music rights management?
3) What types of data can be gathered, and in what ways can this data be meaningfully analysed, to assess the impact of online profile on income generation from music rights?
4) What synergetic strategies regarding marketing, communications and social media can be adopted by music rights companies and artists for maximising income generation from music rights?
5) How do publishing companies better engage/communicate with artists to encourage them to complete the necessary administration around copyright management to to make collection in the digital age possible?