Europe’s music sector must embrace open innovation to compete globally

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Europe’s music sector can remain competitive only if open innovation becomes a shared responsibility. ekip’s policy recommendations highlight a clear path forward: strengthen capabilities that allow many small actors to collaborate, involve audiences as active partners, and support alternative ownership and business models through long-term, intelligent funding.

When these elements align, the sector benefits from faster learning cycles, fairer outcomes for creators, and a stronger pipeline of scalable ideas across borders.

Policy recommendation – Skills and collective capacity

Build technology, data and business skills across the ecosystem and strengthen creator organizations as open-innovation and bargaining hubs.

Most actors in the music sector are small and lack the resources to influence regulation or invest in advanced tools independently. Digital literacy, metadata management, rights knowledge and basic financial skills are essential for artists and SMEs to participate in pilots, adopt shared standards and improve data quality.

Strong unions, collectives and representative bodies help aggregate these fragmented voices, creating feedback loops between practice and policy, reducing duplication and accelerating problem-solving.

“The sector lacks the skills, the data, and the unified voice needed to take full advantage of digital and platform-based opportunities,”
says Ragnar Siil, Director at Creativity Lab (Estonia).

Without stronger skills and collective representation, creators remain dependent on intermediaries and excluded from innovation processes.

Policy recommendation – Audiences as co-innovators

Empower audiences as active partners, not passive consumers.

When listeners understand how recommendation systems and payouts work, and can influence discovery mechanisms, they support fairer services and more diverse repertoires. Tools such as audience panels, transparency dashboards and privacy-safe feedback systems turn platforms into living labs.

This demand-driven innovation helps creators and SMEs design services that reflect real needs and build trust.

“Audiences can drive innovation in many ways – if we let them,”
says Lena Holmberg, Collaboration Office, Lund University.

Policy recommendation – Funding innovation through culture

Design funding models that reward cultural value, diversity and sustainability as drivers of innovation.

Current EU funding frameworks often separate innovation from cultural value. ekip argues for funding models that support cross-sector collaboration and experimentation through innovation portfolios rather than isolated startups.

“We need funding that supports both sustainable growth and continuous innovation,”
notes Charlotte Lorentz Hjorth, Coordinator of ekip.

Policy recommendation – Fair platforms and alternative models

Support cooperative, artist-led and public-interest platforms through predictable financing.

Alternative platform models keep value within local scenes and allow experimentation with governance, payouts and data practices. To scale these models, ekip proposes platform taxation targeting the largest services, with revenues reinvested into data infrastructure, digital literacy, living labs and diversity programmes.

Allowing platforms to invest directly in approved local projects ensures funds strengthen the ecosystem rather than extract value from it.

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Link to the Policy Recommendation:

https://ekipengine.eu/policies/platformisation-of-the-music-industry/