Music Biz 2019

Record labels and artists have an unmonetized asset potentially worth billions of dollars per year. They own the rights to over 50 million songs, but currently only monetize these songs in their entirety. Each song has dozens of component parts, or “stems”, such as vocal tracks, drum beats, and guitar riffs that have tremendous standalone value to diverse buyer segments including DJs, TV, films, online video, radio, podcasts, ads, apps, and games. Despite high demonstrated demand for stems, the stem market has not yet been monetized by record labels and artists.


The stem market is a new industry that represents the logical next step in the disaggregation of songs into newly marketable components. Demand among DJs alone represents a significant market opportunity. The world’s five million professional DJs spend an estimated $2.5 billion on music each year, and this segment has demonstrated a high demand for stems that has been previously unmet due to a lack of available content.


This panel will discuss what record labels and artists are doing to prepare for the growing demand for stems. What are the licensing issues surrounding stems? How will derivative works be treated? How will stems be cleared and accounted for? Join us as we ask the experts what they see as the future for stems.