A UK parliamentary committee has made fresh calls for a “fundamental reform” of music streaming to tackle what it describes as “miserable returns” for songwriters and publishing rights holders.
A report by the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) committee published on Wednesday (April 10) calls on the UK government to “do more to ensure musicians are paid fairly” and press ahead with a sweeping copyright reform package .
These reforms include changing the revenue split between recording and publishing rights from streaming music, which is currently set at around 55% for recording and 15% for publishing. This weighting “does not reflect the importance of songwriters, composers and publishers in the music streaming process,” the commission says. Its members want government ministers to push for a consultation with fans, creators and industry stakeholders to “incentivize an optimal rate” for publishing rights that “will fairly reward creators for their work”.
Other recommendations in the CMS report include introducing a statutory “private copying” fee similar to that in other European countries such as France, Germany and Italy. This would require a small tax on the purchase of electronic devices and blank media that can be used to store songs, which is then paid to artists and songwriters through collective management companies. Introducing such a system would bring in between £250 million ($313 million) and £300 million ($376 million) a year, the CMS panel claims, and ensure reciprocal payments from other markets where private copying mechanisms exist.
“Not only does the lack of such a system in the UK prevent British creators from receiving payments from the domestic market, it has also put their payments from abroad at risk,” the report says, calling for a private copying levy. within the next 12 months.
On the issue of artificial intelligence, the CMS panel reiterated its previous calls for stronger enforcement of authors' rights against AI developers who use copyrighted works for educational purposes without consent or fair compensation.
“We are concerned that the status quo simply favors AI developers, given creators' concerns that their IP is already being used in AI development without a license or any practical means of recourse,” says the report, which criticizes the government's lack of progress in is about creating a code of practice on the use of artificial intelligence and intellectual property.
More support also needs to be given to freelance staff and the self-employed working in creative industries such as the music business in response to long-running complaints about contracts and working conditions, committee members say.
The CMS report is the latest chapter in a long and ongoing series of government-led interventions in the UK music industry fueled by artists' dissatisfaction with low payments from streaming, starting with a 2020 parliamentary inquiry into the business streaming music. That research concluded the following year questioning the dominance of major labels in the industry and declaring that the music streaming business “needs a complete reset”.
Numerous government-led taskforces, inquiries and initiatives followed, including studies looking at 'fair pay' and the impact of artificial intelligence on the music industry. A task force focused on creator pay is set to meet for the first time this month.
Despite the progress made, CMS committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage MP said the UK government “needs to go further and faster to ensure that musicians are really paid properly for their work”.
“If creators are no longer the poor relation, the government must close the loopholes in outdated intellectual property and copyright regulations,” Dinenage said in a statement accompanying Wednesday's report.
In response, Joe Twistchief executive of British labels' trade body BPI, said the panel was right to highlight creators' concerns about genetic artificial intelligence, which he called “arguably the most important issue facing the creative industries today”, but said the report fails to recognize that “With the support of their labels, more UK artists are succeeding in the streaming economy than ever before”.
“In an increasingly competitive global industry, their approach risks limiting investment and damaging the British talent of the future,” Twist said in a statement.
Umbrella trade group the Music Creators Council, whose members include the Musicians' Union and the Music Directors Forum, was more positive about the commission's findings. In a statement, the organization said the report provided a good summary of the issues and some of the proposed solutions to improve creators' pay, but warned that for real progress to be made, “we need stakeholders across the music industry to stop deny reality and instead come to the table with solutions, whether that's copyright reforms proposed by MPs or a negotiated deal.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/streaming/songwriter-streaming-payouts-increase-uk-parliament-committee-1235653648/