The music industry is currently consumed with outrage over various tech-wrought injustices, such as generative A.I.’s new-found ability to copy real singers’ voices, and the laughable-if-it-wasn’t-tragic level of royalties that musicians can hope to wring out of streaming services. However, the contours of a potential rapprochement between the music and tech sectors are slowly coming into focus, largely thanks to the world’s biggest music company, Universal Music Group.
At the start of the year, Universal Music CEO Lucian Grainge told his staff that he wanted to catalyze a new, “innovative, artist-centric model” for streaming. He got Tidal on board in February with a rather vague and aspirational joint statement, and now UMG has struck what it calls “the first comprehensive artist-centric music streaming model” alongside Deezer, the French streamer that’s a market leader in Latin America. And it's a big shift away from the status quo, where every stream is worth the same.
