Initiative from Berklee College of Music Aims to Simplify Music Royalties

A new initiative called The Open Music Initiative aims to solve the vexing issue that has plagued the music industry since the coming of the digital age: how music creators and rights owners are identified and compensated.

Berklee College of Music’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship is teaming up with the MIT Media Lab to “help advance the development of open source frameworks and innovation related to music rights and their associated uses in all media forms,” according to a press release on the initiative’s website.

The initiative has been backed by more than 50 organizations in the music industry, including heavy-hitters like Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, SoundCloud and Netflix.

“It’s not a secret that the infrastructure of the music industry, especially the one around creative rights, has not evolved to accommodate for the ways that music is being created and consumed today,” said Panos Panay, co-founder of OMI and Founding Managing Director of BerkleeICE. “We want to use the brainpower, neutrality and convening ability of our collective academic institutions, along with broad industry collaboration, to create a shared digital architecture for the modern music business. We believe an open sourced platform around creative rights can yield an innovation dividend for creators and rights holders alike.”