1M Modified Tracks: How Pex Music ID tech helps creators get paid

New data estimates that over 1 million modified audio tracks on DSPs are costing rightsholders revenue. Legacy ACR tech can’t identify these tracks, but Pex can. 

Indie Spotlight via A2IM

At Pex, we have spent years building the best content and music identification technology so rightsholders can be attributed and compensated correctly. One thing our technology has taught us is there will always be creators who use other people’s music without permission. Well-intentioned or not, these creators often get paid for works that they don’t own or license, especially when it comes to cover songs, sped up tracks, and other modified audios.

The state of modified audio on DSPs

We specialize in UGC data, and recently analyzed over 20 platforms where we found hundreds of thousands of modified audio tracks, the majority of which we can assume are unlicensed. But UGC sites like YouTube and SoundCloud aren’t the only places creators can distribute their music, so we decided to expand our analysis to include streaming DSPs, like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and Tidal. 

After extrapolating our UGC data as well as publicly available information on streams, we have the data to show that alarming amounts of modified music is slipping through the cracks. From our analysis, we estimate at least 1% of all songs on DSPs are modified audio. We’re talking more than 1M unlicensed, manipulated songs that are diverting revenue away from rightsholders this very minute. These can generate millions in cumulative revenue for the uploaders instead of the correct rightsholders. Spotify estimates that low popularity tracks currently absorbing just 0.5% of its royalties pool are cumulatively generating $40 million in revenue per year.

Starting now, we plan to publish new data each Wednesday to show how much uncredited modified audio is making it onto DSPs. Check out our latest blog to see five examples of modified songs that we easily identified, and that should have been checked for licenses before making it onto streaming platforms. 

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