The UK’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee has called for a complete reset of music streaming to improve precarious pay and working conditions in the creative industries, according to their Creator Remuneration Report. The report used case studies from actors, performers, film and TV directors and musicians, examining the importance of freelancing and contractual terms and the economics of music publishing. Despite billions generated in the UK’s economy, the current remuneration structure for music streaming makes sustaining a living difficult for many artists due to “pitiful” returns for performers, according to the report.
The inquiry highlights the unequal bargaining power with major labels, inequitable splits in revenues, the dominance of the major music companies over the market, poor music streaming practices including bias in playlisting and algorithmic curation, says the report. It calls on the government to bring forward a package of reforms and measures to incentivise an optimal rate for publishing rights to fairly remunerate music makers for their work.
The report enlisted a panel of professionals from music industry advocacy bodies, academics, musicians such as Nile Rodgers and music business leaders including Merck Mercuriadis from the Hipgnosis Songs Fund. Reflecting on the digitalisation of music distribution, Rodgers told the committee, “I have been doing this for 50 years of my life, and in 50 years, you would have thought that, with the advent of all the new technologies, people like me would have a much better life, that things would be easier and we would all profit together, but that is not the case”.
Earlier this year, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) reported that digital streaming accounts for 87.7% of music consumption in the UK, making it one of the biggest sources of revenue for the music industry. However, the industry’s treatment of artists has been criticised for their unfair rights. The EU recently voted to demand fairer pay for musicians from streaming platforms and proposed regulations surrounding AI. In the US, Congress has introduced a new bill aiming to increase royalties paid to artists by increasing compensation to $0.1 per stream as opposed to the current fraction of a cent
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