The Music Streaming Industry Is Booming With Open-Source Platforms, Tie-Ups, AI Tracks, & More

Music and songs have always been an important part of human history.

We’re talking about ancient civilizations that enjoyed the art form by enjoying talented musicians performing in the town square.

Forward to the last century, and it’s become much easier to listen to music and songs—thanks to technological advancements.

From having to wait patiently to catch a popular tune on the radio, to travelling great distances to hear the hottest bands live, and vinyl records that evolved into cassette tapes, we eventually made our way to compact discs that sported digital versions of songs and music.

The digital revolution didn’t stop there, as MP3 players entered the arena. That technology also changed up, as we welcomed iPods and mobile phones that could store thousands of high-quality audio files on microSD cards.

Now, we’re at a place where we don’t need any hardware other than a smartphone, tablet, or laptop with an internet connection.

That’s the magic of audio streaming. (This magic is available for video streaming too.)

In the last few years, the number of audio streaming platforms has grown tremendously, offering users a wide range of options to choose from, across genres and styles. This means a user can switch from classical music to heavy metal, from songs to podcasts or educational tracks.

In fact, in the last year, the total number of streams worldwide reached 4.8 trillion, as per a report by Luminate. This marked a 14% year-on-year increase from 2023’s 4.2 trillion. Here, a large part of the growth came from outside the U.S.

As these numbers continue to boom, the music streaming industry is seeing a fair number of new players come in, while established brands are pushing to enhance their offerings.

YouTube

In the last week, popular streaming giant YouTube revealed a set of new features that could enhance the streaming experience. However, these features are available only on trial for a limited time for Premium members.

One of these features includes high-quality audio, which brings users the best audio quality across iOS and Android devices. It will be available only until February 22.

In addition to this, YouTube is trialing a series of other new features. This includes Jump Ahead, which offers them better control over viewing experiences and pan to where they want. This is available on their website and will be available till February 5.

Users will also be able to keep watching Shorts when switching apps in picture-in-picture on iOS devices until February 19. Ahead of this, they will be able to automatically download Shorts on their iOS devices until February 19. 

Spotify

It’s been a big week for Spotify, which announced a new multi-year agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG), the world leader in music-based entertainment, for Recorded Music and Music Publishing.

The move will aim to foster growth, innovation, and the advancement of artists’ and songwriters’ success, as well as the two collaborating to advance the next era of streaming innovation. It also establishes a direct license between the two, which enhances Spotify’s current product portfolio in the U.S. and several other countries.

Furthermore, the deal is expected to bring advantages to artists, songwriters, and consumers, who will benefit from new and evolving offers, new paid subscription tiers, bundling of music and non-music content, and a richer audio and visual content catalog.

“This agreement furthers and broadens the collaboration with Spotify for both our labels and music publisher, advancing artist-centric principles to drive greater monetization for artists and songwriters, as well as enhancing product offerings for consumers,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO, Universal Music Group.

Spotify’s Founder and CEO Daniel Ek said, “This partnership ensures we can continue to deliver on this promise [of delivering growth and payouts to artists and songwriters] by embracing the certainty that constant innovation is key to making paid music subscriptions even more attractive to a broader audience of fans around the world.”

Musify

Musify brings users the joy of streaming without having to worry about sturdy internet connections, allowing them to beat the buffer downer. It also blesses users with an ad-free music streaming experience.

This open-source platform sources songs from YouTube and doesn’t store any data on its own servers.

The app comes with a home page that resembles YouTube, where users can get recommendations for popular songs, albums, and playlists. However, it also comes with a wide range of customization options for the user interface, bringing users full black themes, and SponsorBlock to avoid sponsor segments. 

Deezer

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made its mark in every industry. The music industry was never one that would be spared.

It brings artists the ability to mass produce music of any genre, in any style, and can even allow them to remix old songs in new styles or new songs in the style of old singers.

However, this also has a downside, one that legendary singer Paul McCartney of The Beatles recently addressed by urging the UK government to ensure upcoming copyright laws protect artists and creative industries.  

Another downside of AI-generated music is what’s hit Deezer, the leading French music streaming service.

As per the company, its platform is witnessing over 10,000 fully AI-generated tracks being deposited daily, which represents around 10% of the music being uploaded.

This has sparked the CEO to announce that the company aims to make moves to address the growing AI issue.

“Going forward, we aim to develop a tagging system for fully AI-generated content, and exclude it from algorithmic and editorial recommendations,” said Alexis Lanternier, the CEO of Deezer.

Do you think artists should be able to use AI to create their music and recreate music in the style of other artists? What do you think about the announcements made by the other streaming platforms?

Let us know in the comments below!