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We do care what our children learn, but we do not care yet about what our robots learn from. One key idea behind trustworthy AI is that you verify what data sources your machine learning algorithms can learn from. As we have emphasised in our forthcoming academic paper and in our experiments, one key problem that goes wrong when you see too few small country artists, or too few womxn in the charts is that the big tech recommendation systems and other autonomous systems are learning from historically biased or patchy data.

rOpenGov, Reprex, and other open collaboration partners teamed up to build on our expertise of open source statistical software development further: we want to create a technologically and financially feasible data-as-service to put our reproducible research products into wider user for the business analyst, scientific researcher and evidence-based policy design communities. Our new release will help with automated economic impact and environmental impact analysis.

In complex systems there are hardly ever singular causes that explain undesired outcomes; in the case of algorithmic bias in music streaming, there is no single bullet that eliminates women from charts or makes Slovak or Estonian language content less valuable than that in English.

Reprex’s project, the automated Demo Music Observatory will be represented by Daniel Antal, co-founder of Reprex among other building bridges projects. This project offers a different approach to the planned European Music Observatory based on the principles of open collaboration, which allows contributions from small organizations and even individuals, and which provides higher levels of quality in terms of auditability, timeliness, transparency and general ease of use.

Our paper argues that fair competition in music streaming is restricted by the nature of the remuneration arrangements between creators and the streaming platforms, the role of playlists, and the strong negotiating power of the major labels. It concludes that urgent consideration should be given to a user-centric payment system, as well as greater transparency of the factors underpinning playlist creation and of negotiated agreements.

I was selected into 2021 Fellowship program of JUMP, the European Music Market Accelerator. Jump provides a framework for music professionals to develop innovative business models, encouraging the music sector to work on a transnational level. The European Music Market Accelerator composed of MaMA Festival and Convention, UnConvention, MIL, Athens Music Week, Nouvelle Prague and Linecheck support him in the development of our two, interrelated projects over the next nine months.

Our startup, Reprex is committed to develop its data platforms, or automated data observatories, and its Listen Local system in a trustworthy manner. Our startup participates in various scientific collaborations that are researching ideas on future regulation of copyright and fair competition with respect to AI algorithms, and joined the Dutch AI Coalition to position the company and the Netherlands at the forefront of knowledge and application of AI for prosperity and well-being, respecting Dutch and European values.

While the US have already taken steps to provide an integrated data space for music as of 1 January 2021, the EU is facing major obstacles not only in the field of music but also in other creative industry sectors. Weighing costs and benefits, there can be little doubt that new data improvement initiatives and sufficient investment in a better copyright data infrastructure should play a central role in EU copyright policy. Preprint of our article with copyright researchers.

Open Data Day is an annual celebration of open data all over the world. It is an opportunity to show how open data can be used to connect different sources of information to generate new forms of knowledge. The availability of such data depends on encouraging the adoption of open data policies in government, business, and civil society. Reprex is a start-up that utilizes open data with open-source reproducible research. Please challenge us with your data requests and participate in our web events to show what open data can do for you.

At last, Reprex has its own company website, leaving the two flagship project sites, the Demo Music Observatory and the Listen Local separate. We are back to blogging after a particularly difficult lockdown period.