Great article. I used to work in the telecom industry, and I remember when standards for things like ISDN and broadband communications were emerging. These new digital services showed so much promise for consumers, and new revenue streams — if only everyone could agree on the tech standards. As a programmer, I totally agree that technology can solve many of the transparency issues in the music business (eg. standardized metadata and the single or distributed metadata database). What is not talked about, except in whispered comments, is that there are existing constituencies in the industry who will lose money if there is greater transparency, and one could imagine that they may be fighting transparency (and the technologies that enable it) for that very reason. In the software industry, we had to work hard within the standards bodies to balance the competing needs of the major players in order to create standards that would allow APIs and protocols to work. With hard-won agreement on the technical standards, the software could and did work together behind the scenes to make money for everyone. Each player knew they would have to give a little in order for the entire system to work, and no one entity could control the process or warp it for their benefit. Of course, strong technical standards bodies have a long tradition in telecom, with representation from all companies with high stakes interests. None of that exists in the music industry. Most big players from an economic perspectice are playing catch up in having technically educated people on staff. I also don’t think the music industry has that tradition of coopetition that telecom had. It seems like it music been created and distributed for so long via back room deals, hidden monopolies and complicated contracts that people signed without really understanding how the money flowed. I think we are seeing digital distribution and streaming music change things already, as glimpses of the underlying economics are coming to light. Yet is remains far from clear how to track the money — and there’s a reason for that. As a music creator, it seems so dishearteningly complicated and crooked. A “cradle to grave” standard for passing metadata and standarized APIs would be great, but I see the political effort to “sell” and implement transparency as more challenging than the technical one.