Resources | Open Music Europe

Open-source music data software ecosystem

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0200

The Open-source music data software ecosystem is developed in an open collaboration on the rOpenGov platform managed by the University of Turku and under the strategic direction of Reprex.

The software solutions have individual (standard) documentation websites, and their development repositories are open for bug reports, improvements or general peer-review. For an overview refer to our website.

Final iteration of an open-source, software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecosystem of tools for music data collection, which improves and integrates the packages eurostat, regions, iotables, retroharmonize, and spotifyr. It will be validated by stakeholders and delivered in the form of an open repository with full usability documentation.

Diversity and Circulation: Methods & Indicators

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0100

Music Diversity and Circulation: Methods and Indicators produce the methodology and data assets for the Report on Music Diversity and Circulation in Europe. The report is developed following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines.

Diversity and Circulation: Methods & Indicators, following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines, develops indicators that capture the cross-border circulation of works/repertoire, the cross-border activities of artists and professionals, cultural diversity within European music repertoires, and the diversity of representation within music distribution channels. This results in a cross-national legal mapping of regulatory sources that define cultural and creative diversity, have diversity as an underlying goal and/or employ diversity indicators in its operation.

Methodological approaches, data collection instruments, and indicators are discussed in a methodology workshop. Further sectors may be added on the basis of the feedback collected through interviews with policymakers and stakeholders’ and expert workshops. A cross-national legal mapping will then be conducted. Methods and indicators will be presented in the D5.1 Open Music Observatory as the Music Economy part of broader Digital Music Observatory.

Development of indicators that capture the cross-border circulation of works/repertoire, the cross-border activities of artists and professionals, cultural diversity within European music repertoires, and the diversity of representation within music distribution channels. This results in a cross-national legal mapping of regulatory sources that define cultural and creative diversity, have diversity as an underlying goal and/or employ diversity indicators in its operation. Methodological approaches, data collection instruments, and indicators are discussed in a methodology workshop. Further sectors may be added on the basis of the feedback collected through interviews with policymakers and stakeholders’ and expert workshops. A cross-national legal mapping will then be conducted.

Examples of potential indicator candidates developed in this deliverable include (but are not limited to): etc.

Examples of potential indicator candidates developed in WP2 include:

Cross border streaming activity
Origins of songwriters behind the most popular songs
Cross-borders activity of live performances
Mobility of professionals
Cross-border analysis of flows of authors’ rights in the EU etc.

You can find the repository of all assets on github.com/dataobservatory-eu/music_diversity_circulation_methods_indicators.

Music economy: methods and indicators

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0100

D1.1 Economy of music in Europe: Methods and indicators produce the methodology and data assets for the Report on the European Music Economy is developed following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines.

D1.1 Economy of music in Europe: Methods and indicators, following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines, identifies critical research questions, data sources and gaps, and data collection methods regarding the economy of music in Europe. It also presents indicators co-developed to measure the economy of music in Europe. The indicator candidates are reviewed and selected indicators are added to the D5.1 Open Music Observatory as the Music Economy part of broader Digital Music Observatory.

We will provide indicators capable of capturing the full economic value of music, including zero-price uses. For this, existing data gaps are identified, analysed and filled. i.e., currently “hidden” data will be reported, MSMEs that currently do not provide data are integrated, zero-price use is measured, etc. Furthermore, methods to effectively act on this data are demonstrated.

Examples of potential indicator candidates developed in this deliverable include (but are not limited to): etc.

Examples of potential indicator candidates developed in WP3 include:

Employment
Value of EU’s music sector
Structure of the market
The impact of the not-for-profit sector on the overall economy of the music sector
Neighbouring rights
Music publishing
Independent music companies
Live music
Export music
Music retail or in-store public performance
Financing of the music sector
Live music regulation
Copyright regulations and evolution of copyright regimes etc.

A pilot study demonstrates exemplary how improved data collection on the value of music can be leveraged to improve artist revenues.

You can find the repository of all assets on github.com/dataobservatory-eu/music_economy_methods_indicators/.

Open Music Observatory

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0100

The Open Music Observatory consists of four additional pillars added to the Digital Music Observatory as a prototype for a future European Music Observatory. It is currently in a very early stage and will be filled out with content throughout the project.

ims to contribute to the aim of creating a decentralised European intelligence hub where centralised data collection and analysis have failed in the music industry during the past 20 years. We envision the Open Data Observatory as a decentralised, prototype of a European Music Observatory (EMO), providing a high level of service where official and centralised solutions have failed.

The Open Data Observatory

complementary service to the ESSnet system (Eurostat and the national statistics offices), furnishing it with statistical products (datasets, visualisations),
is partly a statistical software service provider that maintains a software ecosystem (developed in WP4),
partly a solution provider that makes the reproducible open policy analysis method available for various end-user groups represented in our Consortium and beyond.

It will create reproducible “dynamic policy documents” that

can be transferred from one country to another, or
scaled up from one country to a group of countries or even the entire European Union, and
recast with little effort after the inception of new data every year,
due to their very high level of data/output standardisation and interoperability.

Instead of creating large budget, ad-hoc valuation reports, these reports,

with their automatic data harvesting and processing,
can be recast annually with little further investment,
or they can be transferred from Hungary to Bulgaria, from Slovakia to Lithuania or even Ukraine,

as we plan to showcase (note that to ensure the safety of project personnel, no physical travel to Ukraine will be undertaken as part of the project).

Music Economy | Music Diversity and Circulation | Music & Society | Music Tech & Innovation

Report on Music Data Improvement Initiatives

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0100

The Report on Music Data Improvement Initiatives is developed following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines. You can find the repository of all assets on github.com/dataobservatory-eu/report-music-data-improvement.

Report on Music Diversity and Circulation in Europe

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0100

The Report on Music Diversity and Circulation in Europe is developed following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines. You can find the repository of all assets on github.com/dataobservatory-eu/report-music-diversity-circulation-europe/s.

This deliverable belongs to the Music Diversity and Circulation pillar of our Open Music Observatory.

Report on Music Innovation & Technology in Europe

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0100

The Report on Music Innovation & Technology in Europe is developed following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines. You can find the repository of all assets on dataobservatory-eu/report-music-innovation-technology/.

This deliverable belongs to the Music Tech & Innovation pillar of our Open Music Observatory.

Report on Music, Society, and Citizenship in Europe

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0100

The Report on Music, Society, and Citizenship in Europe is developed following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines. It will build on the Music, Society, and Citizenship: Novel data collection methods and indicators deliverable results (see below).

You can find the repository of all assets on github.com/dataobservatory-eu/report-music-society-citizenship/.

WP3 will analyse and fill data gaps regarding music, society and citizenship in Europe. It will also implement a transferable pilot study to use open data to help MSMEs comply with emerging social and environmental sustainability regulations. The central objectives of WP3 will be to provide indicators that capture social value-adds such as participation in music education, participation in amateur music-making, the role of music in other consumer sectors, and the role of music in social networks; to develop methods for measuring the sustainability of the music industry, in coordination with the SDGs; and to create an open framework for transferring the techniques developed to any willing European market.

We will furthermore explore synergies with the ongoing MusicAIRE project Eviota to avoid risks of duplication of work.

Open policy analysis of music, society, and citizenship in Europe. The policy analysis will focus on sustainability and corporate social responsibility in the music industry, within an SDG framework, as well as the state of the art on research on the non-economic contributions of music to society, e.g. via the impact of cultural participation on social cohesion and well-being.
Implementation of a pilot study in Italy. The pilot study will focus on sustainability and corporate social responsibility in the music industry, within an SDG framework. It will demonstrate the ability of reproducible research and innovation tools to help MSMEs comply with emerging social and environmental sustainability regulations, at a viable cost.
Co-creation of policy guidelines and recommendations for scaling and transferring the pilot on an EU27+ level. Using the Open Policy Analysis guidelines, we will demonstrate how to fill partially or fully the data gaps on music, society, and citizenship identified in the Feasibility Study of the European Music Industry. The policy analysis, pilot study design and results, and transfer potential will be presented in D3.2.

Music, Society, and Citizenship: Novel data collection methods and indicators

Following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines, this deliverable identifies critical research questions, data sources and gaps, and data collection methods regarding music society, and citizenship in Europe. It also presents composite indicators developed to measure the social value and contributions of music. The second iteration will be reviewed by selected stakeholders. The indicators will furthermore be added to the Open Music Observatory (D5.1).

Examples of potential indicator candidates developed in WP3 include:

Music education - informal practices
Training schemes for music professionals
Social networks and music
Scope of the not-for-profit sector in Europe
Social impact of music in communities etc.

This task will focus on the development of indicators following the indicator development cycle of Eurostat, starting with understanding user needs.

Regarding means of measurement, it will update the cultural access and participation (CAP) survey methodologyrecommended in 2012 by ESSnet Culture (as adapted by ARTISJUS, SOZA, and REPREX) in light of new methods developed by the Eurobarometer and European Social Survey core teams in 2020-2022.

It will close with a user workshop where we will demonstrate to (sub-)national policy users, EU-level policy users, and music education and business users a general indicator development framework, as well as many indicator candidates to facilitate a dialogue of needs. The methods and indicators will be presented in
We will collect open-source data on cultural access and participation utilising the software package developed in WP4. Relevant data on environmental impacts will also be collected from the European Environmental Agency and Eurostat using the software package developed in WP4.
We will conduct new cultural access and participation (CAP) surveys in Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, and Italy. The survey strategy will update the 2012 culture statistics recommendation of ESSnet-Culture in light of 2020-2022 methods and use the ICET model framework to enable comparability with business transaction data. To maximise the accuracy of recall and enable synthesis with financial year business data, the CAP surveys will be carried out in Jan/Feb

The survey results will be retrospectively harmonised with earlier CAP surveys conducted by ARTISJUS, SOZA, the Commissions Eurobarometer survey, and EU-SILC for stability and larger international and historical comparison dating back to 2007; the piracy surveys of the EUIPO in years 2013; and the piracy research of UVA and SSSA.

Harmonisation with prior surveys will allow the construction of synthetic longitudinal datasets – one of the outputs will be the comparison of cultural access and participation live and online before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic, including differences between social segments and impact on well-being.
The open collaboration method will be used: all methods and instruments will be fully open, and all data will be harmonised, enabling any representative organisation to localise them and join the action with few time or cost barriers. Localisation assistance may be provided in partner countries.

This deliverable belongs to the Music & Society pillar of our Open Music Observatory.

The Work Package that delivers this report is coordinated by James Edwards, PhD.

Report on the European Music Economy

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0100

Economy of music in Europe: Methods and indicators produce the methodology and data assets. The Report on the European Music Economy is developed following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines.

0.1: For for reproducability and best compliance with OPA, we

The Report on the European Music Economy, for full reproducibility, following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines, this deliverable is a “live policy document” that is first useful for readers in 2024, but will integrate data as it appears in the pipeline from the inception of the project (and illustration data at the proposal stage). The policy context regarding the economy of music in Europe is described. Lastly, it analyses the transfer potential of the Bulgarian and Hungarian pilot study to other European music ecosystems, as a new best practice. It is designed to be readable as a stand-alone deliverable, but the data it presents will also be integrated into D5.1 Open Music Observatory as the Music Economy part of broader Digital Music Observatory.

Examples of potential indicator candidates developed in this deliverable include (but are not limited to): etc.

Examples of potential indicator candidates developed in WP3 include:

Employment
Value of EU’s music sector
Structure of the market
The impact of the not-for-profit sector on the overall economy of the music sector
Neighbouring rights
Music publishing
Independent music companies
Live music
Export music
Music retail or in-store public performance
Financing of the music sector
Live music regulation
Copyright regulations and evolution of copyright regimes etc.

A pilot study demonstrates exemplary how improved data collection on the value of music can be leveraged to improve artist revenues.

You can find the repository of all assets on github.com/dataobservatory-eu/report-european-music-economy.

Software Validation Report

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0100

The Software Validation Report is developed following the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines. You can find the repository of all assets on github.com/dataobservatory-eu/openmuse_software_validation_report.

Overview

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 13:52:00 +0200

D1.1 Economy of music in Europe: Methods and indicators

D1.2 Report on the European Music Economy

D1.3 Report on Music Data Improvement Initiatives

D2.1Music diversity and circulation: Novel data collection methods and indicators

D2.2 Report on Music Diversity and Circulation in Europe

D3.1 Music, Society, and Citizenship: Novel data collection methods and indicators

D3.2 Report on Music, Society, and Citizenship in Europe

D4.1 Open-source music data software ecosystem and the Software menu.

D4.2 Report on Music Innovation & Technology in Europe

D4.3 Software Validation Report

D5.1 Open Music Observatory

D5.6 Policy Brief 1

D5.7 Policy Brief 2

Open Policy Analysis

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 14:00:00 +0000

Our ambition is to truly maximize transparency, (re)usability, scientific, policy, and business impact while embracing the best practices laid out in the the recommendations of the Reproducibility of scientific results scoping report, and the Progress on Open Science: Towards a Shared Research Knowledge System policy documents of the European Commission’s DG Research & Innovation, as well as the best practices outlined in the evidence-based Knowledge4Policy K4P platform of the European Commission. For the first time in Europe, we will apply and contextualize the Open Policy Analysis Guidelines, which grew out of several initiatives in research transparency with the aim of maximizing benefits in the context of the Foundations for Evidence-based Policy Making Act of 2018 initiative in the United States. We want to ensure that by relying not only on the best European practices, but considering trans-Atlantic experiences, we will make the most out of the opportunities offered by the European Open Data Directive of 2019. This will not only mean rendering a dramatically increased data availability for our partners, as well as increased quality assurance and transparency in our work, but also immediate data access. Following the EU & US best practices we have already placed before submitting our proposal our important software tools, methodologies, and sample data in the Zenodo repository.

What we promise in the Open Music Europe grant agreement?

The OPA guidelines go farther than current Horizon Europe recommendations, subjecting policy research and deliberation to standards as rigorous as those used in e.g. open-source software development and open science peer review.

The guidelines consist of three layers:

open materials (i.e., the evidence considered in policy)
open analysis (the analytical procedures to which the evidence is subject)
and open output (the indicators, recommendations, etc. derived from the analysis)

Each level must be fully replicable: e.g.,

all file structures must be standardised,
all data rendered open and labelled,
all methods and code open-source,
and all outputs traceable to the materials and methods used to reach them.

Establishing a clear link between input and output by displaying how the output changes under

Open Materials (Level 3)

Compliance in practice

See the Open materials part of our introductory blogpost.

Standardise the file structure so that materials are organized in a way that is accessible to an informed reader: all project components are organized in a selfcontained folder using a Standard File Structure (SFS), and a readme file is included. See examples:
Label and document each input, including data, research, and guesswork: list all inputs, and their sources, and provide links or detailed references. In practice, all our inputs are uploaded into the repositories, and they have included in the standard bibliography (.bib) files which make their citation automatic in use.
Ensure that code/spreadsheets are reproducible: For code: Code is easily readable and possible to run with just one click. For spreadsheets, this level of compliance is not applicable. The Turku Data Science team and Reprex will assist all our research teams in making their data outputs reproducible.
Use a version control strategy: All team members use version control software and track changes in a shared project repository. All our deliverables are delivered in a version-controlled repository.

Our commitment to the OPA is on level 3; WP leaders are requested to enforce compliance on this level. Reprex, Synyo and the Turku Data Science team will provide to WP teams assistance to make them compliant with level 3 if they can start working only on level 2 or level 1 based on bilateral agreements and training programs.

Open Analysis (Level 3)

Compliance in practice

See the Open analysis part of our introductory blogpost.

Provide clear accounts of all methodological procedures in a way that is easily interpreted by an informed reader: Code is clearly documented into a dynamic document, or open notebook. No spreadsheets. Synyo is tasked to make document templates that help compliance with this principle, and are integrated with popular word processors or presentation templates–see Open Materials above. Reprex and Turku assist all work package leaders to comply in content with this requirement.

Share raw (or analytic) data and materials in a way that the analysis is reproducible with minimal effort. Analytic and raw data are made available through a trusted repository. We chose GitHub as a temporary repository where all our changes can be traced; and periodically we place these materials on Zenodo, where they are stored independently from our Consortium for a very long period. Detailed instructions are provided for accessing raw data that is proprietary or contains sensitive information.

Share an open report that includes clear accounts of all methodological procedures, data, and assumptions.

Open Outputs

Ensure unified output by defining the most appropriate format for the report before publishing, and justifying changes to format output across reports: A detailed description of output is provided, including a sample output published pre-release of final results, using version control within and across reports.

Synyo as an expert in scientific dissemination is in charge for making sure that you have all the templates, and materials that ensure compliance. This is an iterative process: our work package researchers will try out their templates in practice with the 8 other principles, and ask for refinements for better compliance here.

Establish a clear link between input and output by displaying how the output changes under different assumptions. An interactive tool allowing for adjusted inputs is provided, and its underlying code shares the same key sections of code behind the analysis section. Reprex as an expert on reproducible research is assisting our research teams in the work packages to create these interactive policy reports.

Our new software will continue to run in the cloud, depositing all of our findings—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reuseable digital assets, including our well-designed and user-tested indicators in 41 data gap fields—into our Digital Music Observatory, which already hosts a modern REST API similar to the Eurostat Rest API. We are still adjusting this service in order to find a way to best implement SDMx and other data standards while maintaining ease of use. We anticipate enhanced usability by April 2022.

Layer	Goal	Target	Example
Open Output	Ensure unified output	We comply with the level 3 requirements and we will create a showcase how to do this best following EU open science recommendations.	See our example.
Open Output	Establish a clear link between input and output	We will produce more than 100 outputs, some only as indicators, and others in form of policy analysis, we will comply with level 1,2,3 as necessary.	Our affiliated music industry partners will create cases studies with interactive tools (level 3). See our Slovak case study which came with a Shiny App that analyzed music recommendations.
Open Analysis	Provide clear accounts of all methodological procedures in a way that is easily interpreted by an informed reader.	We accomplish level 3 with placing the code in clearly documented. into a dynamic document, or open notebook	See for example our blogpost on automatic forecasting for the music industry.
Open Analysis	Share raw (or analytic) data and materials in a way that the analysis is reproducible with minimal effort.	We will accomplish level 3 through trusted repositories following EU recommendations. We will use the Zenodo repository developed by CERN and the EU’s OpenAIRE project.	See our solution on Zenodo.
Open Analysis	Share an open report that includes clear accounts of all methodological procedures, data, and assumptions.	We would like to go beyond the level 3 requirements of the OPA with using standardized documentation languages, such as SDMX statistical metadata and its standardized codebooks, and comply with both Dublin Core and DataCite extended, recommended standarized reporing.	See our example An Empirical Analysis of Music Streaming Revenues and Their Distribution created for the UK Intellectual Property Office’s evidence-based policy effort in music streaming.
Open Materials	Standardize the file structure so that materials are organized in a way that is accessible to an informed reader.	We comply with the level 3 requirements. Our versioned controled output is on Github.	See an example on Github.
Open Materials	Label and document each input, including data, research, and guesswork.	We will go beyond level 3 requirements, because we want to make sure that our labelling and documentation is interopreable, and we apply various metadata standards for this purpose.	See our example explaining how we document our datasets in our API.
Open Materials	Ensure that code/spreadsheets are reproducible.	All our spreadsheets are machine generated for the convenience of the user who uses spreadsheet applications, but everything can be run with a click, which accomplishes level 3, and maintains the convenience of level 1-2 for the user. We go further with creating authoritative copies of each dataset and visualization with DOIs. We also produce an API which gives programatic or single table access to both the data and standardized codebooks.	See our API. All our datasets are described in detail on Zenodo and Figshare, too.
Open Materials	Use a version control strategy.	We use Git version control, and we employ various repositories and project documentation tools on Github. These are linked with the Zenodo EU open repository and our data API.	See our example intergration.