Fairness and music streaming platforms in Europe: Professionals, ideas and framings

The article examines how professionals in the European music industry address fairness in the context of music streaming services (MSS). Drawing on Discursive Institutionalism and framing analysis, it explores the main ideas through which industry stakeholders interpret and justify fairness. Based on 22 semi-structured interviews and an online survey, the analysis identifies three interrelated narratives: fairness as redistribution of value, fairness as balance of power and fairness as equality of opportunity. These narratives illustrate how professionals mobilise fairness to interpret both the challenges introduced by MSS and the need to renegotiate long-standing arrangements within the sector. The findings provide an empirical contribution to debates on fairness by capturing the bottom-up ideas of industry actors, showing that concerns about remuneration, transparency and diversity transcend purely economic or technical dimensions. The article argues that understanding these ideational dynamics is essential for informing future discussions on cultural policy and platform governance in the creative industries.