Online music distribution

This chapter analyses multiple aspects of online music distribution, investigating the major problems, the different approaches, and business models, considering the different points of view and perspec- tives, presenting the emerging technologies and digital rights management standards, analysing issues for rights clearing, intellectual property protection, content retrieval, and metadata management. The chapter presents the structure of the developing market of digital music and multimedia content distri- bution, considering all the stakeholders and their mutual relationships, as well as the legal framework. It highlights the importance of the needs of end users and consumers of music when considering the major problems, as well as the new behaviours and possibilities originated by the availability of music in digital form. This chapter is aimed at many different audiences, from policy makers to music end users and consumers to content creators, publishers, and distributors, as well as technology providers, and in general, to all the players in the digital music content value chain.