The music trade talks always about proudly owning masters, publishing and catalogues. It talks a lot much less about proudly owning the viewers that makes these belongings precious.
By Deborah Oyedijo
For many music advertising campaigns, the reply appears apparent: the label or artiste has collected the info, so it should now have a precious database of followers to market to. However that assumption turns into a lot much less easy when you take a look at the place that data really lives, who controls it, what the fan agreed to, and whether or not the label can nonetheless use it after the marketing campaign that collected it has ended.
This issues as a result of a big a part of trendy music advertising occurs on infrastructure that artistes and labels don’t management. Meta is aware of who watched the advert, who clicked it, who interacted with it and the way these customers behaved on its platform. TikTok has its personal report of engagement. Spotify controls what its promoting and analytics instruments can inform a marketing campaign supervisor. A label might obtain experiences, viewers segments and efficiency statistics, however that’s not essentially the identical factor as possessing a transportable database of the person followers who generated these insights.
The excellence is simple to overlook as a result of the advertising marketing campaign nonetheless feels just like the label’s property. The artiste’s identify is on the advert. The label paid for it. The marketing campaign supervisor can see the outcomes. However a lot of the underlying relationship is going on some place else. And that creates a wierd place for the African music trade: artistes are spending cash to construct audiences on platforms that may inform them an awesome deal about their followers with out essentially giving them the underlying fan relationship to take some place else.
Contemplate how an atypical launch marketing campaign works. An artiste declares a brand new single and asks followers to pre-save it. A hyperlink collects names, e mail addresses or cellphone numbers. The label runs an Instagram or TikTok marketing campaign. Followers click on, watch, share and work together. A live performance is introduced, and a presale kind collects one other batch of e mail addresses and phone numbers. Probably the most dedicated followers may then be moved right into a WhatsApp broadcast checklist or a non-public neighborhood. None of this seems to be notably outstanding anymore. It’s merely how music advertising works. However these actions produce completely different sorts of data, and they don’t all belong to the identical particular person or exist below the identical authorized relationship.
A Meta marketing campaign, for example, can inform a label how many individuals noticed an advert, what number of clicked and which viewers segments carried out greatest. It may possibly assist determine the traits of individuals almost certainly to have interaction with an artiste. However the label doesn’t ordinarily obtain a spreadsheet containing each Instagram consumer who watched the advert, along with their private data, just because the label paid for the marketing campaign. The identical primary dependency exists throughout different platforms. The platform provides the infrastructure and controls a lot of the info generated inside it. The label will get entry to instruments and insights below the platform’s phrases.
This is the reason the phrase “rented infrastructure” is beneficial. The trade is constructing its fan relationships on digital property that belongs to anyone else. That’s not essentially an issue. Social platforms present attain that a person label may by no means construct by itself. An rising artiste can attain thousands and thousands of individuals with out proudly owning a single piece of digital infrastructure.
The issue begins when an trade turns into so depending on these platforms that it by no means builds a direct relationship with the individuals behind the numbers. A label can know that an artiste has 500,000 followers and nonetheless battle to reply a way more helpful query: what number of of these individuals can the label instantly attain exterior Instagram? That’s the place HYBE gives a helpful distinction.
Via Weverse, HYBE has spent years constructing a devoted fan platform quite than leaving the complete fan relationship inside Instagram, TikTok or different third-party social networks. Weverse has developed right into a broader ecosystem the place followers can be a part of artist communities, entry content material, talk, take part in memberships and buy merchandise.
HYBE’s personal reporting describes Weverse as a world superfan platform, and by July 2026 it reported greater than 14 million month-to-month energetic customers throughout the service. The necessary distinction shouldn’t be that HYBE by some means “owns” every bit of private data on Weverse in the identical approach it owns a grasp recording. That will oversimplify data-protection legislation. Weverse itself operates below a privateness coverage and shares sure data with HYBE and different companions below outlined preparations. The extra necessary level is that HYBE has helped construct the first-party atmosphere during which a big a part of the fan relationship takes place.
That modifications the enterprise potentialities. A fan shopping for BTS merchandise by Weverse shouldn’t be merely an individual who occurred to see an Instagram advert. The acquisition takes place inside an ecosystem that may join fan membership, content material, merchandise and live performance exercise. Weverse’s present operations embody pre-purchasing merchandise for assortment at concert events, for instance, whereas HYBE’s personal reporting hyperlinks the platform’s engagement and spending exercise with its wider artist-driven and merchandise companies.
That is the bigger lesson for African music. A label doesn’t essentially must construct the following Weverse tomorrow. However it does want to consider the distinction between viewers attain and fan possession of the connection. That distinction turns into much more sophisticated as soon as privateness legislation enters the image. In Nigeria, the Knowledge Safety Act 2023 doesn’t deal with private information as an atypical business asset that an organization can merely accumulate and hold as a result of it has obtained it. Part 25 gives a number of lawful bases for processing private information, together with consent, contractual necessity and sure authentic pursuits. The place consent is relied upon, part 26 locations the burden of proving that consent on the info controller. Silence or inactivity doesn’t represent consent, and consent should be affirmative quite than based mostly on a pre-selected affirmation. The particular person should additionally be told of their proper to withdraw it. That’s notably related to the seemingly innocent presale or ticket kind.
If a fan enters their e mail deal with to obtain entry to a ticket presale, what precisely did they comply with? Did they comply with obtain details about that exact live performance? Did they comply with obtain advertising for the artiste’s subsequent album? Did they comply with have their data shared with the label’s advertising companion? Did they comply with obtain WhatsApp messages six months later? These will not be essentially the identical goal.
The NDPA requires a controller gathering private information instantly from a knowledge topic to offer data together with the aim of processing, the lawful foundation being relied upon, recipients or classes of recipients the place relevant, retention data and the rights obtainable to the info topic. And consent shouldn’t be everlasting just because it was obtained as soon as. Part 35 offers a knowledge topic the best to withdraw consent at any time and requires the controller to make withdrawal as straightforward as giving consent. Part 36 goes additional for direct advertising: an individual can object at any time to the processing of their private information for direct advertising, together with profiling linked to that advertising, and as soon as they object, the info ought to now not be processed for that goal.
So think about an artiste’s label collects 20,000 e mail addresses throughout an album presale. The album marketing campaign ends. Two years later, the label desires to make use of those self same addresses to advertise merchandise, one other artiste on its roster or a brand new business partnership. The truth that the label nonetheless has the spreadsheet doesn’t reply whether or not it will possibly lawfully use it for that new goal.
The identical pressure seems in South Africa. Part 69 of the Safety of Private Data Act, or POPIA, particularly regulates direct advertising by digital communication. It typically prohibits processing private data for unsolicited digital direct advertising until the info topic has consented or falls inside an outlined existing-customer exception. A non-customer whose consent is required could also be approached solely as soon as to request that consent.
The place the existing-customer exception applies, it’s restricted to the accountable get together’s personal related services or products and requires an affordable alternative to object each when the data is collected and in subsequent advertising communications. Each digital advertising communication should additionally determine the sender and supply a approach for the recipient to request that the communications cease.
Kenya’s Knowledge Safety Act takes a equally severe strategy to consent. Part 32 places the burden of proving consent on the controller or processor and provides the info topic a proper to withdraw consent. The Workplace of the Knowledge Safety Commissioner has additionally emphasised that consent should be voluntary and purpose-specific, and that business processing can not merely depend on implied consent. The convergence throughout these markets is necessary.
The main points differ, however the underlying precept is remarkably constant: a fan’s private information shouldn’t be a clean cheque. That complicates the language of “possession”. A grasp recording is a recognisable property proper. If a label owns a grasp, it will possibly exploit that asset topic to the phrases of its agreements and relevant legislation. Private information is completely different. A label would be the information controller for data it collects and will have lawful authority to course of it for specific functions, however that doesn’t give it limitless possession over the particular person’s identification, contact particulars or behavioural data. The higher approach to consider it’s as a relationship of lawful management and permitted use, not easy possession.
And that distinction issues enormously for music advertising. A label may spend ₦10 million selling an album and conclude that the marketing campaign has “generated” 100,000 followers. But when most of these individuals have been reached by Meta and TikTok, the label might have generated consideration with out constructing a instantly transportable database. If it collected e mail addresses by a presale, in the meantime, it could have created a precious first-party database, however that database nonetheless exists inside the limits of the consent, goal and different obligations that ruled its assortment.
The business alternative is clear. The compliance accountability is simply too. This raises an uncomfortable query about how campaigns are literally being run throughout African music markets. When a fan enters a cellphone quantity for an unique launch, is the label recording what they consented to? Is the aim clearly said? Is there a retention coverage? Can the fan unsubscribe from the WhatsApp checklist with out having to beg somebody on a administration group to take away them? If a third-party advertising company collected the data, does the label know precisely what that company is permitted to do with it?
And maybe most significantly, does anybody know the place the info is six months after the marketing campaign ends? The reply can not merely be that the info is beneficial. The legislation is more and more asking a unique query: helpful for what, on what authorized foundation, for a way lengthy and below whose management? That’s the place the African music trade’s present dependence on rented platforms turns into extra important. The issue shouldn’t be that labels use Instagram, TikTok, YouTube or different platforms. They need to.
The issue is constructing a whole fan technique round infrastructure that may change its guidelines, limit entry to viewers information or disappear with out leaving the label with a significant direct relationship with the individuals it spent years making an attempt to succeed in.
HYBE’s Weverse demonstrates one attainable reply, though its scale and assets make it unrealistic to easily copy the mannequin wholesale. The lesson shouldn’t be that each African label must construct an enormous proprietary platform. It’s that the music enterprise can deal with fan relationships as infrastructure price investing in quite than treating them as a by-product of social-media campaigns. For African music, that would imply smaller, extra deliberate programs: correctly consented e mail databases, fan golf equipment, ticketing databases, artiste-owned communities, membership programmes and direct commerce channels that enable an artiste to recognise and talk with real followers with out relying totally on an algorithmic feed. However constructing these programs responsibly requires one thing the trade can not afford to deal with as an afterthought: information governance.
The way forward for music advertising is not going to merely belong to the artiste with the largest following. More and more, it could belong to the artiste who is aware of which a part of that following they’ll really attain, what they’re legally permitted to do with that relationship and whether or not the fan can stroll away from it at any time. The African music trade has develop into excellent at renting consideration. The subsequent stage is studying the way to construct lasting fan infrastructure of its personal. And if it desires the business advantages of that relationship, it should perceive one thing much more elementary: a fan might be a part of your database, however that doesn’t imply you personal the fan.
Deborah Oyedijo is a music enterprise author and leisure lawyer-in-training with a give attention to the African music trade. When she shouldn’t be writing about music rights and tradition, she is watching Okay-dramas or absorbing yet one more documentary. Join along with her on IG and X: ayooyedijo
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