Music consumers' perspective on the fairness of music streaming services and recommender systems

This paper summarises the findings from interviews with users of music streaming services, conducted as part of the Fair MusE work-package 4: "Music Consumers & Music Diversity". The research aims to understand how users perceive Music Streaming Services (hereafter "MSS") and their recommender systems. We wish to gain insight into how users perceive the notion of ‘fairness’ in relation to music streaming services. Do they perceive the current services as fair? Are music streaming services supposed to be fair? Is fairness important from a user perspective, and if so, what elements of fairness do they emphasise? We seek to explore these questions through 36 in-depth semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted during 2024 with users from a diverse range of European countries, although the majority were from either France, Denmark or Portugal. Our findings make clear that fairness, as conceptualised by users, is a multifaceted concept. While some users emphasise equal opportunity, others see fairness more closely related to equity. All users point to the importance of fair remuneration for artists, noting that fairness entails equitable distribution of revenues among all contributors involved in music production.