Current Challenges and Visions in Music Recommender Systems Research

Music recommender systems (MRS) have experienced a boom in recent years, thanks to the emergence and success of online streaming services, which nowadays make available almost all music in the world at the user's fingertip. While today's MRS considerably help users to find interesting music in these huge catalogs, MRS research is still facing substantial challenges. In particular when it comes to build, incorporate, and evaluate recommendation strategies that integrate information beyond simple user--item interactions or content-based descriptors, but dig deep into the very essence of listener needs, preferences, and intentions, MRS research becomes a big endeavor and related publications quite sparse. The purpose of this trends and survey article is twofold. We first identify and shed light on what we believe are the most pressing challenges MRS research is facing, from both academic and industry perspectives. We review the state of the art towards solving these challenges and discuss its limitations. Second, we detail possible future directions and visions we contemplate for the further evolution of the field. The article should therefore serve two purposes: giving the interested reader an overview of current challenges in MRS research and providing guidance for young researchers by identifying interesting, yet under-researched, directions in the field

Locating Power in Platformization:Music Streaming Playlists and Curatorial Power

Where does the “power” of platformization reside? As is widely recognized, platforms are matchmakers which interface between different markets or “sides.” This article analyzes platform power dynamics through three of the most important markets that Spotify—the leading audio streaming platform—is embedded within: the music market; the advertising market; and the finance market. It does so through the lens of the playlist. Playlists can be seen as a central example of how platforms like Spotify employ curation or “curatorial power” to mediate markets in the attempt to advance their own interests. At the same time, playlists are an outcome of the conflicting pressures and tensions between these markets. As such, they provide a lens through which to view broader structural dynamics within the platform economy. As this case study of Spotify demonstrates, platform “power” is an always unstable and shifting outcome of the ongoing attempt to coordinate between various markets and actors

Cache policies for cloud-based systems: To keep or not to keep

In this paper, we study cache policies for cloud-based caching. Cloud-based caching uses cloud storage services such as Amazon S3 as a cache for data items that would have been recomputed otherwise. Cloud-based caching departs from classical caching: cloud resources are potentially infinite and only paid when used, while classical caching relies on a fixed storage capacity and its main monetary cost comes from the initial investment. To deal with this new context, we design and evaluate a new caching policy that minimizes the overall cost of a cloud-based system. The policy takes into account the frequency of consumption of an item and the cloud cost model. We show that this policy is easier to operate, that it scales with the demand and that it outperforms classical policies managing a fixed capacity.Comment: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing 2014 (CLOUD 14

"More of an art than a science": Supporting the creation of playlists and mixes

This paper presents an analysis of how people construct playlists and mixes. Interviews with practitioners and postings made to a web site are analyzed using a grounded theory approach to extract themes and categorizations. The information sought is often encapsulated as music information retrieval tasks, albeit not as the traditional "known item search" paradigm. The collated data is analyzed and trends identified and discussed in relation to music information retrieval algorithms that could help support such activity

“Wake Up, Mr. West!”: Distinguishing Albums and Compilations for Statutory Damages in Copyright within a Streaming–Centric Music Economy

The concept of the music album has been a vital cornerstone of the recorded music industry since its adoption in the form of the long–play vinyl record in 1948. For over sixty years, the ability for artists to package a cohesive collection of performances has remained of paramount priority and an art within itself, notwithstanding the flurry of technological innovations that have altered the album’s size, shape, length, and interactivity. These collections of songs have even withstood the so–called “era of unbundilization,” as digital music services declared a new piecemeal distribution standard of albums through the turn of the century. While consumers began to dismantle albums by purchasing individual digital song downloads (and decimating industry revenue in the process), the creative community nevertheless continued to conceive, produce, market, and release musical works in a cohesive “album” format. To this day, courts have interpreted the Copyright Act to include albums in the generous definition of compilations, for the purposes of calculating statutory damage awards. This unbundilization of content—and thus the remodeling of the album format—is no stranger to the federal court system. Judges have exhibited an immense amount of discordance over the last ten years, debating whether albums should still be considered “one work” in the context of digital music stores, and thus no longer warrant single statutory damage awards in infringement claims. Yet in the middle of this ongoing debate, the introduction of on–demand music streaming flipped the idea of an album on its head once more, this time threatening the very essence of the album: permanence. In recent years, streaming platforms have been used as tools to allow artists to further enlarge, redact, swap, and otherwise manipulate their albums post release in reacting to consumer behavior, in real time. Analogous to a digital software application, this new album delivery mechanism erases the permanence of the long–form musical experience, creating, as Mr. Kanye West declared, “a living, breathing, changing creative expression.” Courts will now be forced to thread the needle in interpreting the collective work, compilation, and derivative work, definitions—in addition to distinguishing the conflicting tests used among the courts left over from the iTunes generation—in the face of multiple, disparate album release methods. This comment explores this unsettled terrain of music copyright law, analyzes the various approaches courts will likely employ, and argues for a new standard to define mercurial albums released through on-demand streaming services in order to most appropriately incentivize musical innovation while equitably compensating rights holders in future copyright infringement claims

Rock On: The State of Rock Music Among Generation Z

Rock music is a significant part of American culture and has always had ties to the socialization of the youth since its rise in the 1950s. Many musicians and music journalists have pushed forth the opinion that the genre is “dead” as its relevance in young adult culture has faded away in favor of different genres of mainstream music. However, rock artists have seen more success and virality in the past few years. This is primarily true through the social media platform TikTok, the largest platform of its kind with most young people as part of its userbase. The following study intends to analyze and explain the relationship between rock music and members of Generation Z, particularly 18- to 24- year-olds, through an online Qualtrics survey. It highlights the musical preferences of this target group, including how they discover rock music and respond to the rock music they are presented on social media. Many of the participants embrace the genre with a feeling that it is rising in popularity in their age group. Secondary research was conducted to find data on some of the rock artists that have gained traction on TikTok, to highlight the impact that massive exposure to Generation Z has had on them. The effects of virality are evident in the short term for these artists, but the long term effects are minimal. Findings of the study suggest that artists and labels need to develop strategies to convert those who come across their viral music into devoted fans of the band

Pay-to-Playlist: The Commerce of Music Streaming

Payola—sometimes referred to as “pay-for-play”—is the undisclosed payment, or acceptance of payment, in cash or in kind, for promotion of a song, album, or artist. Some form of pay-for-play has existed in the music industry since the nineteenth century. Most prominently, the term has been used to refer to the practice of musicians and record labels paying radio DJs to play certain songs in order to boost their popularity and sales. Since the middle of the twentieth century, the FCC has regulated this behavior—ostensibly because of its propensity to harm consumers and competition—by requiring that broadcasters disclose such payments. As streaming music platforms continue to siphon off listeners from analog radio, a new form of payola has emerged. In this new streaming payola, musicians and labels simply shift their payments from radio to streaming music platforms like Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Instead of going to DJs, payments (or their equivalents) go to platforms, third-party playlisters, and influencers who can help promote a song by directing audiences toward it. Because online platforms do not fall under the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) jurisdiction, streaming pay-for-play is not currently regulated at the federal level, although some of it may be subject to state advertising disclosure laws. In this Article, we describe the history and regulation of traditional forms of pay-for-play and explain how streaming payola practices differ. Our account is based, in substantive part, on a novel series of qualitative interviews with music industry professionals. Our analysis finds the normative case for regulating the most common form of streaming payola lacking: contrary to conventional wisdom, we show that streaming pay-for-play paid to third parties, whether disclosed or not, likely causes little to no harm to consumers and may even help independent artists gain access to a broader audience. The case of “reverse payola,” in which a platform itself offers promotion in exchange for paying out a lower-than-market royalty rate, is potentially more concerning. Given this state of affairs, regulators should proceed with caution to preserve the potential advantages afforded by streaming payola while avoiding further exacerbating extant inequalities and anticompetitive concerns in the music industry

HOW HAVE MUSICIANS’ CAREERS CHANGED IN THE DIGITAL PLATFORM ERA?

openLa "platform society" è una realtà. O meglio, una seconda realtà che si aggiunge e si sovrappone alla dimensione fisica. Ciò vale anche per l'industria musicale. Gli ulitmi quindici anni hanno visto la crescita di piattaforme di streaming musicale come Spotify, con il conseguente riposizionamento dei vari attori coinvolti nell'industria e del relativo sistema economico. Per i musicisti, il nuovo scenario apre a nuove possibilità e pone nuove sfide.The platform society is a reality. Better said, it is a second reality that adds and intertwines with the physical dimension. This is so also for the music industry. The last fifteen years have seen the growth of music streaming platforms such as Spotify and the consequent repositioning of actors and revolution of the music economy. The new scenario opens up new possibilities and poses new challenges to musicians' careers

Automatic Personalized Playlist Generation

Käesolevas magistritöös on esitatud automaatse personaliseeritud pleilisti tekitaja probleemi lähenemisviiside uuring. Lisaks teoreetilise tausta lühiülevaatele me dokumenteerisime oma lähenemist: meie poolt tehtud katsed ning nende tulemused. Meie algoritm koosneb kahest põhiosast: pleilisti hindamisfunktsiooni konstrueerimine ning pleilisti genereerimisstrateegia valik. Esimese ülesande lahendamiseks on valitud Naive Bayes klassifitseerija ning 5-elemendiline MIRtoolbox tööristakasti poolt kavandatud audio sisupõhiste attribuutide vektor, mis klassiitseerivad pleilisti heaks või halvaks 82% täpsusega - palju parem kui juhuslik klassifitseerija (50%). Teise probleemi lahendamiseks proovisime kolm genereerimisalgoritmi: lohistus (Shuffle), randomiseeritud otsing (Randomized Search) ning geneetiline algoritm (Genetic Algorithm). Vastavalt katsete tulemustele kõige paremini ja kiiremini töötab randomiseeritud otsingu algoritm. Kõik katsed on tehtud 5 ning 10 elemendilistel pleilistidel. Kokkuvõttes, oleme arendanud automatiseeritud personaliseeritud pleilisti tekitaja algoritmi, mis vastavalt meie hinnangutele vastab ka kasutaja ootustele rohkem, kui juhuslikud lohistajad. Algoritmi võib kasutada keerulisema pleilistide konstrueerimiseks