Patience ‘wearing thin’ over fair pay deal for music creators

Patience is "wearing thin” with the lack of progress in achieving a fair slice of streaming income for musicians, organisations representing music creators have told an industry working group established by government.

A statement delivered at the first meeting of the Creator Remuneration Working Group (CRWG) group last Thursday (18 April) by four member organisations of the Council of Music Makers that sit on the body, said the forum must be used as a way to address "unfair and unsustainable" decisions made by a small group of major players when music streaming first emerged in the 2000s.

The statement said it has been four years since the #BrokenRecord campaign, three years since the Culture Media and Sport (CMS) Committee called for a complete reset of streaming and two years since the government conceded there was a problem with creator remuneration.

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"We think it’s fair to say that the music-maker community has been very patient, but that patience is wearing thin,” the representatives said.

"The select committee last week set a 12-month deadline to address these issues and put in place solutions, so we really need to get down to business.

“We think we need to focus. There are lots of other issues with streaming that are important to music-makers, but which we are not here to talk about and we will not discuss.

“We’re not here to talk about streaming price point. We’re not here to talk about how streaming services allocate monies to each catalogue. We’re not here to talk about AI or piracy or safe harbour. We are here to ensure that the music-makers whose music is being streamed are fairly remunerated, irrespective of when deals were done with labels or publishers.”

The group is scheduled to meet on a monthly basis over the next six months. Its first meeting follows the release of the CMS Select Comittee’s latest report on the issue, which set a 12-month deadline to address issues around creator remuneration and put in place solutions.

The committee's report also called on government to "revisit the membership" of the Creator Remuneration Working Group, which has a total of 20 members including Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music, to "give music makers a stronger and fairer voice in group discussions".

Priorities

The representatives said they had three main objectives for the working group, all in line with the Council of Music Makers' five fundamentals for music streaming, which was first published in March 2023.

These objectives are to have a modern digital royalty rate for all featured artists with a rolling commitment to pay unrecouped balances, to have an equitable or equivalent remuneration fund for all performers including session musicians and to offer a right to contract adjustments and rights reversion.

The CRWG was told the first phase of work should focus on music makers whose music is heavily streamed and delivers significant value to streaming services and corporate rightsholders, but who do not receive an equitable share of the value.

The representatives said these artists are often locked into deals with business partners which chose to apply contract terms and industry conventions of the old world to the new world.

“They did this with zero consultation with the music-maker community, and zero communication of the decisions which were taken unilaterally,” they said.

While insisting that they are "not here to simply bash record labels, music publishers or platforms”, the representatives explained that music makers are “always the initial investors”.

“When music streaming first emerged in the 2000s, music-makers were not consulted on the business model, and a number of unfair and unsustainable decisions were made by a small group of major players, whose industry was admittedly in crisis,” they explained.

“That crisis is now long forgotten, but the bad decisions haven’t been reversed.”

Statutory remuneration

The representatives called for changes to copyright law, advising statutory remuneration for performers on at least some digital platforms is now active in countries including Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Mexico, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain and Uruguay.

“These issues are now being addressed around the world, and we have an opportunity here to solve the problems in the UK and ensure we remain a competitive marketplace for music-making. We know this can be done through changes to copyright law,” they said.

In closing, the representatives told the working group that while they know “a future Labour government would be minded to legislate”, they understand “the current government and industry would prefer voluntary solutions”.

“Playing hardball in undisclosed commercial settings is understandable, but, be under no illusion, when we are here to help tens of thousands of struggling self-employed creators and SMEs in the UK, those behaviours can easily be taken for intransigence. So let’s use this working group to deliver solutions,” they said.

According to the government website, the CRWG is chaired by DCMS senior civil servants and supported by DCMS and Intellectual Property Office officials.