ProMusicDB calls for first-ever artist-controlled database for music credits
In the digital age, controlling one’s music credits, identity and legacy is more challenging than ever before. Many organizations have tried—and failed—to serve as a central online music credits resource.
Why have none of these organizations succeeded? For starters, none are willing to put the control of credits in the hands of the artists themselves. It’s only fitting, then, that an artist would develop the most promising solution to date: ProMusicDB.org.
“Instead of riding it out and dealing with more industry damage, I believe it is time for artists to take control of their credits, identity, metadata, and digital legacy,” says Christy Crowl, Founder of ProMusicDB.org and a successful songwriter, singer, musician, producer and music director. “We need to build a central resource of professional music credits and metadata online, and that data should be reusable to conduct our business and preserve our collective legacy.”
Through ProMusicDB.org’s easy-to-use Digital Musician Companion™ template tool, members only need to input their basic information once, then can begin adding their credits and metadata to their personal ProMusicDB archive. With a ProMusicDB.org URL, members can save their name and will be assigned a Unique Global Identifier to protect and validate their identity. In addition, ProMusicDB.org is offering personal credits/data curation services, enabling artists to clean up incorrect data about them in open source and proprietary databases.
Through ProMusicDB.org, commercial interests of the music industry can correctly identify and locate music professionals, helping the industry become more transparent and benefiting the economy of musicians and their professional organizations. In addition, academic and government interests (including the Library of Congress, U.S. Copyright office, and universities) can enhance their catalogs with authenticated creator, rights and performer information, or contribute their stored data to an authentic metadata ecosystem. This benefits music students, rights holders, their colleagues, and music fans who are looking for one place to discover musical facts.
“The artists have already done the hard work—creating music. Now we have a platform where they can validate their identity and preserve their credits and archives in a centralized manner, and have created the infrastructure that can benefit both artists and industry when they need to access and repurpose that information,” Crowl adds. “We hope both the professional musician and performing rights organizations, as well as music and music credit retailers, will work with us to make their systems more interoperable with ProMusicDB, for the benefit of their members and customers. Over the long term, we believe that the basics of who wrote, played, produced, or participated in the creation of a musical work needs to be easily accessible – from the marketing aspect for the professional musician/music creator, to the end-user satisfaction of curiosity to know who wrote and played on a song or score that is being listened to. Ultimately, I believe it’s how the next generation of musicians, and many after, will learn about being a musician. And as our music products are everywhere, the information about who created those music products should be too.”
ProMusicDB.org is a project of the Pasadena Arts Council’s EMERGE Program and is a founding member of the BerkleeICE Open Music Initiative. Endorsers include the Professional Musicians Local 47 of the American Federation of Musicians, SAG-AFTRA Singers, the Music Library Association, the Entertainment ID Registry Association, and the Wrecking Crew.
Would you like to become a member of ProMusicDB? ProMusicDB.org enrollment is open to musicians at promusicdb.org. Follow ProMusicDB at facebook.com/promusicdb and twitter.com/promusicdb.
