Is the music industry gaslighting artists?

The below is a guest post by Annabella Coldrick, Chief Executive, Music Managers Forum. You can read our guest post policy here.

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“In a debate that… has often been characterised more by anecdote than by evidence, facts assume even greater importance.” Geoff Taylor, former BPI CEO, August 2022

The phrase “Government-led working group” will probably send your average Music Ally subscriber running to the hills, but tomorrow morning (April 18th) a crucial meeting takes place that should be of interest to everyone working in recorded music. It will mark the first time that UK music representatives have formally come together with the Government to discuss constructive reforms of how streaming revenues are distributed to artists, songwriters and other music makers, as well as other structural changes to industry practices. 

But will the voices of music makers actually be heard, or will the status quo be protected by corporate interests?

The fact we’re sitting down at all is thanks to the UK Parliament’s Culture Committee and their response to the Fix Streaming campaign. The Committee’s landmark 2021 report brought wider attention to many of the fundamental inequities in the current label-centric model of music streaming, and recommended a “complete reset”of how that model operated. 

As a result, in September 2021 the UK Government committed to bring the industry together, to formalise a process of discussion and deliver results (or in their words “drive action”) on key issues, including equitable remuneration, contract transparency and platform liability. 

Two-and-a-half years later, and here we are. Progress has been slow.  

Slow progress

With Government oversight and input, the industry has now collectively agreed (although not yet implemented) voluntary Transparency and Data codes. However, for the MMF and other members of the Council of Music Makers (the Ivors Academy, the Featured Artists Coalition, the Music Producers Guild, and the Musicians’ Union) the most pressing issues have always been financial. We want to address the mechanics and distribution of streaming revenue. 

All five of our organisations are united in the kind of changes we want to see – such as modern digital royalty rates for all artists, irrespective of when their contracts were signed, unconditional write-off of unrecouped balances after a reasonable period of time, fair payments to session musicians, and the opportunity to revise outdated contract terms to ensure they remain fit for purpose in the streaming age.  

In our view, these are pragmatic and reasonable requests. All have been adopted in some form by either forward-thinking music businesses or countries with forward-thinking politicians. 

But will the voices of music makers actually be heard, or will the status quo be protected by corporate interests?

We now want to crack on, drive action, and see what can be agreed in the UK. 

Unfortunately, going into Thursday’s meeting there is a growing state of concern and in fact a deliberate campaign of misinformation we have to contend with. 

For a start, this group to discuss creator remuneration is noticeably light on creator representatives. In fact, we have 4 seats out of 20. The major labels have a place each, alongside their trade body, the BPI. The MPA have 4 reps, AIM have 3 reps, as do the streaming services and collecting societies. Yet music producers haven’t even been invited.

[Update: Ben Wynter, counted here as one of AIM’s three representatives, has since clarified that he although he works for AIM, for the working group he is representing Power Up, the initiative supporting Black musicians and industry professionals that he founded.]

As pointed out by the latest report by Parliament (p73), this feels distinctly unbalanced, and has been compounded by some ominous mood music before we even enter the room following publication of a long-anticipated study on Equitable Remuneration (ER) by the Intellectual Property Office.

This study explored the application of three different types of ER to music streaming, and how these might ensure that a proportion of revenue would be paid directly to artists and performers, outside the terms of their label or distribution deals – the full Broadcast Model, the Partial Broadcast Model and the Spanish Model. 

The report was heavily caveated, and came with a clear disclaimer that its purpose “was not to conclude or provide specific recommendations.”

The BPI’s response – described by Music Ally as “ebullient” – falsely claimed that the study concluded “unequivocally” that any ER model would undermine the success of British music, and that any policy intervention “would threaten the prospects of British music and would undermine the essential role that labels play in investing in and supporting artists.”

I realise we live in an era of Trumpian misinformation and fake news, but by any stretch of the imagination this was a pretty shameless misinterpretation of the study’s contents which specifically states that “many of the mechanics from within ER could well have merit in moving the debate forward and applying ER more selectively might drive a more targeted benefit.” 

It hasn’t gone unnoticed by MPs either. The Creator Remuneration report published last week by Parliament’s Culture Committee made a pointed reference to debunking the BPI’s spin (point 71). 

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example. 

For example, when the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) published a comprehensive market study on music streaming in 2022, the authors made clear they were not giving the music business a “clean bill of health”, but concluded that any problems with music streaming, artist earnings and the structure of the music business were not due to competition issues. Therefore, they should be dealt with by the industry itself and/or politicians – rather than the CMA.

They certainly didn’t deny the existence of music maker concerns – or claim that those concerns were unfounded.

It also risks the UK falling behind the curve, at a time when our creative talent has never faced such significant global competition

Deliberate misinformation

Yet the BPI continues to repeatedly claim that the CMA have found no problems in the streaming market. To the point where it feels there is a premeditated strategy to derail discussions around streaming reform by insisting that music-makers should simply accept the status quo, and focus instead on “growing the pie”, rather than the fairness of how it is divided up. In truth, it feels like gaslighting. 

(For more examples of deliberate disinformation, see the table below, or take part in the MMF’s short “Facts Vs Fiction” quiz here.)

For me, there is now a real concern that a refusal by the major rights-owners to acknowledge the collective views of music-makers, risks undermining the Creator Remuneration Group before it even sits down. 

This feels incredibly short-sighted. It also risks the UK falling behind the curve, at a time when our creative talent has never faced such significant global competition. 

In other countries, there have been concerted efforts to rebalance the streaming economy towards creators – whether that’s streaming levies in Spain, Canada, Belgium and Germany, minimum digital royalty rates in France or contract reversion rights in the US. 

Another piece of UK Government research into contract adjustment and rights reversion shows other countries around the world grappling with the same issues. In fact, according to the study, reversion rights of some form are present in legislation of 55% of the member states of the United Nations. 

As Parliament’s most recent report demanded “The Government must take stock of the results of the extensive research it has commissioned and look at how it can drive fundamental reform of music streaming with a package of measures designed to make streaming work for all.”

The BPI continuously and repeatedly claim that any ‘rebalancing’ of the pie towards music makers will make the UK uncompetitive and lead to a sharp decline in label investment. However, where those policy interventions have taken place, these haven’t destroyed their music industries and all have thriving creator scenes.  Given that the United States, the world’s leading music market, has long-standing reversion rights after 35 years, this seems questionable at best and at worst an unfounded threat to politicians. 

If the UK wants to maintain a world-leading music business, then we must have world-leading business practices. And to establish those practices, it’s imperative that tomorrow’s meeting acknowledges the concerns of artists, creators and music-makers and builds toward delivering tangible solutions. I remain optimistic that this is still possible. After years of discussion, we urgently require a working group that works, not another talking shop. 

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