Labels, DSPs, PROs, distributors, publishers... with so many different sets of data, who is the definitive authority on music rights?

The music industry and various third parties have tried multiple times over the years to solve this fundamental problem. Usually by trying to create a unified, single system to meet the needs of all verticals in the industry.

The problem is complex and is rooted in the historical separation of artists from their IP rights and revenue generation. It is compounded by the un-attributable revenue model that incentivises opaque processes and incomplete metadata. In spite of this, we detect a sea change:

• government and standards-body initiatives (UK IPO metadata and streaming inquiries, US Music Modernisation Act, WIPO's work on AI and music metadata)
• growing pressure from artists and managers for transparency and verified attribution
• evolving metadata uses and values, including algorithms, playlists, and now AI training and disclosure
• education creating artist empowerment and IP rights awareness
• the need for provenance and identity verification as AI-assisted and AI-generated music enters the supply chain

The Envoke approach is to leverage these areas of change from a different angle. Our purpose is to re-engage artists with their music, their revenue, and their equally valuable data. One of the direct ways to do this is re-connecting artists to their metadata, as artists are the source of information about their music. Developed using a complex combination of public policy, research, educational initiatives and emerging technologies; we are creating practical tools using innovative and rewarding design that recognises what the artist values and is motivated by. We take a human centred approach. Art is from the human, and metadata is a description of that art. We return that focus to the individual and generate the metadata from that source.

As AI-assisted and AI-generated music fills platforms, that same principle becomes the industry's next hard problem: proving a human made a given work, and crediting them correctly for it. Envoke's design principle sits underneath all of this: change the system to fit the creator. Complete, accurate, rich metadata that's easy to create, verify, integrate and communicate has never been designed. It's been patched together after the fact. Our approach starts from the point of creation, not after it, reframing metadata capture as people first, song first.