By Dmitri Vietze, Founder of the Music Tectonics Conference,
Not a music industry conversation goes by without someone bringing up the disruption that came from peer-to-peer music sharing and the switch to music streaming.
Technology changed what was possible and the recording industry lost its ability to monetize song listening. It took years to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, first by developing a market for the limitless jukebox of Spotify and then by inventing licensing models for social media platforms that became the new railway for music sharing.
All of these changes disconnected artists and labels from fans and listeners and, through the process, lowered the monetary value of every listen and lowered the amount consumers spent on listening to recorded music. Some of these changes pushed music to the background. So it makes sense that the music industry has held technology at arm’s length, seeing it as deflating the economic value of music, or as a form of arbitrage pushing payment for music from creators and rightsholders to platforms where listeners gather.
But as Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, puts it: technology is an accelerator. The problem is not technology; it’s the value proposition that has been negotiated or sidestepped. Change the value proposition, and technology can accelerate growth of the value of music and the music market as a whole.
Certain music technologies have been created specifically with revenue in mind, and when you put it all together, they become an engine for growing the size of the music industry. Sure, streaming continues to grow industry revenue and live performance doubles the market size. But collecting all that revenue is not as straightforward as it could be.
Plus, just as technology has accelerated the fragmentation of artist-fan connections, it can also speed up its reunification, by triggering more engagement, and new products and revenue streams that increase the lifetime value of music fans.
I’ve identified 8 categories of emerging technology that can help music companies grow their revenue and in the process grow the total market for music.
1. Catalog Value.
Increasing the value of songs and recordings starts with understanding how much they are worth and whether they are currently undervalued in regards to possible or forthcoming revenue streams. A healthy catalog exchange market allows for more money to flow into the music industry; allowing artists or their estates to cash out or share investment in their songs or recordings, which is money that can be re-invested in music or at least create long term incentives for those just getting started in creating musical IP.
Technology companies and key players in this category might include streaming audit platforms, catalog valuation advisors and tools, royalty revenue forecasting tools, metadata optimization, royalty advance & catalog funding platforms, and music IP investment funds, some of which build their own tech for catalog valuation.
2. Revenue Recovery.
With all the fragmentation between artists, labels, DSPs, licensors, pirates, and fans, the music revenue framework has a lot of leaks. Whether you call it a black box or breakage, part of growing the value of music is collecting the correct amounts from the relevant parties and paying them to the right rightsholders.
These types of tools help us capture more of the value that has been left on the table — some even track down money from under the table: Royalty gap finders, rights matching and recognition engines, collection society technology, publishing administration platforms, and royalty accounting software.
+Read more: "The Chart Is the Scoreboard. The Catalog Is the Score."
3. Distribution and Artist/Label Services
For a long time, independent artists without a label (and independent labels without distribution deals), were left without the opportunity to monetize their music. As we look at growing the value of music, we have to include these platforms that have opened the doors to more music being released and more listening and more music use.
While some argue that distribution has become commoditized, you have to admit more differentiation has been introduced and that has the potential to increase the market. These tech companies include enterprise label & distributor delivery platforms, independent artist distributors, and independent label back-office software. And distributors play a key role in scalable artist and label services.
4. Licensing
Remember when television had a renaissance with incredible soundtracks leading to the growth of sync? And advertisers followed suit with licensing top tracks to sell products? In walked a rebirth of coffee shops, fitness apps, meditation software, yoga studios, and gaming wanting to spice up experiences with the application of music. Dare we bring up YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok? Sync has remained a small share of total revenue, yet music is placed everywhere.
Companies trying to collect more revenue from licensing include curated premium sync libraries, subscription-based content creator licensing platforms, social platform and UGC licensing technology, and new and specialized DSPs. We might also include new audio-visual formats that are interactive and music-driven (like remix apps that let fans share videos based on their creations).
5. AI Licensing
Given the unique characteristics of generative AI, I’ve pulled this as its own category of licensing, especially since the market rates and use cases are not clear yet. As a result, there is a whole industry sector emerging to address the specific needs of revenue collection and licensing for generative AI training and licensing.
If the music industry gets this right, there is the potential for a huge amount of new revenue for the use of music to train generative AI models. These companies include licensed AI music training platforms, generative music attribution infrastructure, licensed generative music creation tools, and voice and likeness licensing platforms.
+Read more: "Running the Numbers on '1,000 True Fans'"
6. Fan Growth
There’s been tremendous creativity in the tools and platforms to help market songs, tickets, experiences, VIP clubs, and merch. CRMs built for music, tools to pull more value out of audience segmentation, fan data capture and drops features, and anything that helps artists, managers, and labels re-connect with fans make up this category.
Fan data and CRM platforms, release drop and fan list marketing tools, cross-platform artist analytics, and social music marketing automation tools are all on the rise.
7. Fan Revenue
It appears that many fans are willing to spend money on music, beyond their monthly subscription fee and tickets for performances. Direct-to-fan e-commerce optimizations continue to innovate. These include artist-owned storefront platforms, label-backed fan community apps, and artist membership, micro-patronage, and subscription tools.
8. New Music Products
When it comes to finding new products for fans to buy, there is a lot of innovation in music tech.
The vinyl resurgence is evidence of listeners’ desire to purchase and own something. New form factors of physical goods is the tip of the iceberg and artists and labels are finding all sorts of other things to sell and ways to sell them, thanks to new technology, such as music content, sample & beat marketplaces, music talent & services marketplaces, AI audio creation and stem tools, artist legacy and immersive experience companies, and music game and interactive entertainment platforms.
As an industry, we need to move away from solely transactional conversations, towards systems that grow the overall market. Each player in the music ecosystem can benefit from rowing in the same direction. Many of the companies and people who fall in these categories need to talk more. That’s one of the most important things we can do right now, and there are many places evolving to do it.
If we all see our job as growing the TAM, as making the most of tech to make the tide rise for all, we’ll see a healthier music industry and witness the final days of the value gap.
Dmitri Vietze is the Founder of the Music Tectonics Conference, held October 27-29, 2026, in Santa Monica, California; and the CEO of the PR and marketing firm Rock Paper Scissors.
