Guidance

UK Industry Agreement on Music Streaming Metadata

The UK music industry has agreed to improve music streaming metadata

From:
Intellectual Property Office
Published
31 May 2023
Last updated
2 November 2023 — See all updates

Documents

United Kingdom Industry Agreement on Music Streaming Metadata

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Details

In the era of digital music, good quality metadata, which describes who contributed to a track’s creation and how, is essential to making sure music makers are accurately credited and paid.

But metadata is often not as accurate or complete as it should be, in particular in relation to songwriters and their song or composition. Incomplete or inaccurate metadata can lead to significant delays to creators being paid for the use of their works, and in some cases not being paid at all.

The UK industry agreement on music streaming metadata sets out a positive commitment from players across the music streaming industry to improve metadata on music streaming services in the UK. It includes:

  • a shared ambition to progressively improve the quality and timeliness of work and songwriter metadata associated with new recordings on streaming services over a two-year period, including the consistent display of these credits
  • agreement to take steps to ensure a core data set is associated with all new recordings and provided to streaming services in similar timeframes as recording and artist metadata
  • agreement to follow and promote good practice in industry
  • agreement to establish and support expert working groups on education and technical solutions to drive forward further improvements during the two-year period

The voluntary agreement is the work of an IPO-chaired working group of industry experts, who met throughout 2022. It forms part of the government’s programme of work to address issues identified by the DCMS Select Committee’s Inquiry into the Economics of Music Streaming.

The full metadata agreement including annexes can be found under the documents section.

UK signatories to the metadata agreement include:

  • Association for Electronic Music (AFEM) on behalf of its members that operate in the UK
  • Association of Independent Music (AIM)
  • British Phonographic Industry (BPI)
  • The Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) on behalf of its digital music service members (DSPs)
  • Envoke Network
  • Featured Artists Coalition (The FAC)
  • Hipgnosis Songs Fund
  • Horus Music
  • Interstellar Music Services
  • The Ivors Academy
  • Music Managers Forum (MMF)
  • Music Producers Guild (MPG)
  • Music Publishers Association (MPA)
  • Musicians’ Union (MU)
  • MusicTeam in relation to their UK operations
  • Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL)
  • PRS for Music

If your company or organisation operates in the UK as part of the music industry and you would like to sign up to the metadata agreement, please contact us at musicstreaming@ipo.gov.uk.

Updates to this page

Published 31 May 2023
Last updated 2 November 2023 + show all updates

  1. Added content 'improve the quality and timeliness of work and songwriter metadata associated' 'including the consistent display of these credits' to first bullet point. Added 'provided to streaming services in similar timeframes as recording and artist metadata' to second bullet point. Added link to https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-industry-agreement-on-music-streaming-metadata-working-groups in text.

  2. Association for Electronic Music (AFEM), Envoke Network, Horus Music, Interstellar Music Services and MusicTeam has been added to the UK signatories to the metadata agreement.

  3. First published.

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