Workshop Music ID - MUSIC FRONTIERS

A Groundbreaking Workshop for a Broken System

The music industry’s backend is a mess—confusing codes, mismatched rights, untraceable revenues. For artists, especially those outside the top 1%, making a living from music is increasingly difficult.

This workshop is a closed-door session under Chatham House Rules.

This workshop aims to bring together a group of experts with both the knowledge and the will to try and crack one of the music industry’s enduring issues: the complex, baffling and malfunctioning systems of music metadata, rights and revenue management.

The WHY?

“The Music Industry Is Broken” – perhaps not all of it, but for many of us passionate that musicians and music creators get paid correctly when their art is played, we’d argue the current system is truly broken.

And that, rather than pushing the onus onto the musician to learn this baffling and broken system of the past, we - the industry - should take responsibility to build a new, simplified system fit for the music business of the future.

The WHY NOW?

The time to explore, solve and innovate is now; increasingly, musicians outside of the top 1% elite struggle to make money from their music; new creators into the industry are faced with a barrage of codes, identifiers, registrations and legacy rules making their quest to monetise their art even harder.

We know that all the well-meaning initiatives to educate and inform can never reach the full cohort of current and future music creators globally. We know also that the nature of music creation in 2025 and beyond has evolved but we continue to retrofit new realities into the legacy structures and last-century treaties no longer fit-for-purpose.

The WHAT

To kick off a discussion to critique, explore, and potentially problem-solve this decades-old issue, the workshop will use the M.ID (Musician I.D) proposal from Voicebox Music as a starting point for debate and constructive argument.

At the heart of M.ID is the will to create a far simplified coding system for the musician-creator, coupled with 21st century technologies and greatly improved governance, to de-code the current mess and re-code to a simple, accountable, transparent mechanic for getting the right monies from each revenue stream to the right parties reliably and efficiently.

The WHAT'S NEXT

The goal of the workshop is:

to establish if the concept of M.ID or something similar can be iterated and developed into a meaningful alternative to today’s system and structure.
if it can, to identify next steps for its development and a willing group of industry participants to bring the work forward.
to establish a roadmap of development work and targets for progress which can be reported on and discussed through the next 12 months and re-presented/presented to future events which look to provide new and innovative music industry solutions which don’t simply ‘put lipstick on the pig’.

The WHO

This is an invitation-only session. We're looking for professionals across the music ecosystem who represent various different verticals and who understand and engage with:

Metadata & rights management
Licensing & royalty structures
Technology systems for attribution and tracking
Distribution, labels, publishers, DSPs, and tech platforms

Workshop Structure:

This workshop is brought to you by Silvia Montello (VoiceBox Music Consulting), committed to practical, progressive change in the music industry.

This 90-minute session is designed for maximum impact. We begin with a concise 10–15 minute overview of the current metadata and revenue challenges and an introduction to the M.ID proposal. From there, the floor opens to a structured, solutions-focused discussion where participants dive into the core issues, challenge assumptions, and co-develop potential pathways forward.

The final segment will focus on identifying actionable next steps, possible collaborators, and setting the groundwork for continued development beyond the workshop. Expect sharp thinking, open debate, and real progress.

Pre-WORKSHOP

Silvia/Voicebox will share a 3-page background document for M.ID with confirmed workshop participants 10 days prior to the workshop so the concepts can be digested beforehand and attendees can bring questions/challenges and solutions to the session.

On the day

A 15-minute framing presentation recaps the issue and outlines M.ID.

A 60–90 minute working session to debate, critique, and develop ideas.

WORKSHOP LENGTH

90 minutes is preferred to allow deep discussion of a complex topic.

If you're ready to engage in real change, grounded in expertise and driven by collaboration, then apply to be part of this Decode/Recode workshop.

Don’t just talk about fixing the system. Help design the solution.

Where: BrainLab at @AQUA-Höfe

When: September 4 from 2 - 3.30 pm

Apply to Join the Workshop