The music biz is addicted to data. Festivals use it to sell sponsorships to brands. Bands in buses use it to rally fans at their ports of call. Music publishers use it to find out which songs connect and which don’t. And labels use it to determine which artists to chase and which to drop.
But new data privacy laws in Europe (GDPR) and California (CCPA) are trying to make the music biz go to rehab … with tough restrictions on how data can be used and traded. Could a healthier music biz and better music come out of this? And how come the Beatles went viral faster in 1963 than Lil Nas X did today? Could data addiction provide a clue?