Project Background
The Open Music Observatory (OMO) is part of the Open Music Europe Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action (Grant Agreement No. 101095295). The project responds to a long-standing need for reliable, interoperable, and publicly accessible data about Europe’s music sector—covering creation, performance, circulation, diversity, heritage, and economic value.
Europe’s music data is highly fragmented: held across archives, libraries, collective management organisations, research institutes, foundations, and commercial platforms. The Observatory provides a federated, decentralised infrastructure that connects these data sources without forcing centralisation. It aligns with European standards such as the EIF, EOSC, Data Spaces, and the emerging European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage.
The project builds on earlier initiatives such as CEEMID (Central & Eastern European Music Industry Data) and responds directly to the European Parliament Resolution on Cultural Diversity and the Conditions for Authors in the European Music Streaming Market (P9_TA(2024)0020), which calls for a European Music Observatory and clear policy recommendations on metadata, fairness, transparency, and cultural sustainability.
P9_TA(2024)0020 – Cultural diversity and the conditions for authors in the European music streaming market, European Parliament resolution of 17 January 2024 (2023/2054(INI)), OJ C, C/2024/5711, 17.10.2024. ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/5711/oj
The Federated Data Sharing Spaces
The Open Music Observatory is built from four interoperable, federated data-sharing spaces. These demonstrate how music data can be governed responsibly at supranational, national, regional, and sub-national levels.
Full long-form documentation is available at https://downloads.reprex.nl/2025/open-music-observatory/ .
Finno-Ugric Data Sharing Space
A module demonstrating how minoritised and endangered ethnolinguistic communities (e.g., Livonian, Karelian, Sámi, Mari) can regain stewardship over their heritage materials. It serves as a subsidiarity example: empowering regional identity groups to curate and present their own music data.
Slovak Comprehensive Music Database
A national module developed with the National Library of Slovakia, SOZA, the Slovak Music Information Centre (IAMIC/IAML), and the Music Fund. It demonstrates how national institutions can coordinate a shared, well-governed infrastructure, supporting many policy goals described in the CITF report and the European Parliament resolution.
Hungarian Music Database
A developing module that demonstrates how countries without pre-existing shared music-data ecosystems can adopt the Observatory’s federated model. It focuses on folkloric collections, heritage archives, and post-socialist materials with metadata repair needs.
Open Music Observatory Core Module
The supranational module that aggregates European-level datasets, studies, indicators, and data from countries not yet operating a full national node. It provides a cross-European view of musical diversity, circulation, creation, and economic and cultural value.