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Elbow frontman Guy Garvey says the way artists are paid for audio broadcasts is “threatening the future of music.”
“That sounds very dramatic,” he told the deputies, “but if the musicians cannot pay the rent.
.
.
we don’t have tomorrow’s music in place.
“The musician was giving evidence to a DCMS Committee investigation into the streaming music market.
MPs heard that the coronavirus crisis had made it clear that streaming artists’ earnings are “pretty horrible.”
“Young musicians who depend on live income are really going to struggle,” said Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien.
His comments were backed up by Mercury-nominated musician Nadine Shah, who said that “the proceeds from my broadcast are not significant enough to keep the wolf out of the door.”
Shah said he was speaking on behalf of “many fellow musicians” who were afraid to speak out “because we don’t want to lose favor with streaming platforms and major labels.”
Young musicians are “scared,” agreed Tom Gray of the rock band Gomez.
“They are concerned that if they speak, they will not be included in the playlist.
“The investigation came after the Covid-19 pandemic wiped out a year of touring revenue, drawing artists’ attention to the money they were making from their records.
At the beginning of the shutdown, the Musicians Union and the Ivors Academy launched the Keep Music Alive campaign, calling the streaming royalties “woefully insufficient” and urging the government to conduct a review.
It runs in parallel with an online campaign called #BrokenRecord, founded by Gray, that seeks to address inequalities in the way streaming profits are shared between record labels, musicians, and the streaming services themselves.
Addressing MPs, Gray acknowledged that the exploitation of artists was as old a story as the music industry itself, but said broadcasting “had made the problem worse and deepened.”
‘Tapped Out’ Currently, Spotify is believed to pay between £ 0.
002 and £ 0.
0038 per stream, while Apple Music pays around £ 0.
0059.
YouTube pays less: around £ 0.
00052 (or 0.
05 pence) per flow.
All that money goes to rights holders, a blanket term that covers everything from massive record companies to artists releasing their own music.
Then that money is divided among everyone involved in making the album.
Often times, the recording artist will only receive about 13% of the revenue, with record labels and publishers taking the rest.
Explaining the discrepancy, Gray told MPs that many musicians are tied to archaic contracts, formulated in the age of cassettes and CDs, that do not reflect the realities of the 21st century music business.
For example, he said, “Big label deals still have physical breakage clauses,” meaning that 10% of an artist’s royalties are automatically deducted to cover the cost of damaged vinyl and CDs, even when the Most of the music is played online. .
Tom Frederikse, a lawyer and former producer, who also gave testimony, said that in some cases the clause for damages reached 25%.
Independent labels tend to do more equitable deals, Gray added, with some offering a 50/50 split of profits.
O’Brien acknowledged that Radiohead had made millions from his music, but said he spoke on behalf of less fortunate artists.
“The inherent problem we have as musicians is that we love what we do.
It is like therapy.
I had years of depression and kept my head above water because I’m in this band with my brothers.
“I would do this for free,” he added, “and that is precisely what has been taken advantage of.”
Most musicians were careful to praise the streaming services, saying they used them to discover new music and reach new audiences, but they asked the government to ensure a more equitable distribution of revenue.
“I’m not here to defend Paul McCartney to get more money,” Gray said.
Instead, he noted that the world’s three largest record labels, none of which are based in the UK, currently enjoyed “the best profit margins they have ever made in their history.”
“If we rebalance this, the money goes into the UK economy,” he said.
“It seems a bit obvious.
We need to protect our talent pool.
The investigation continues and you will hear the “perspectives of industry experts, artists and record labels, as well as the streaming platforms themselves.”
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