A performance review: is copyright doing its job in the music industry?

Yesterday, this Kat posted an overview of artist's arguments being heard at the economics of music streaming Inquiry by the UK Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. There was a lot to say about equitable remuneration, transparency, copyright assignment returns, and playlisters. Turns out I'm not done... In this post, I want to reflect on the issues by giving copyright a performance review, is copyright doing its job? Is it fit for purpose in the context of music streaming?

Copyright's job description

In my forthcoming [lockdown] book, Copyright in the Music Industry, I spend the entire first chapter on why artists and songwriters should even care about copyright, and why it matters to music. The first answer [there is a long list of reasons] is in the point of copyright. 

Broadly speaking, the Anglo-American justification for copyright emphasises the economic role of copyright as a system that compensates creators for their work, which would otherwise be a freely accessible commodity with no market value, because it is easy to duplicate. So, copyright steps in to ensure that creators get paid for their work, which enables them to continue to create, and rightsholders can disseminate that creativity, knowledge and culture – thus benefiting society as a whole. 

So copyright is how the music industry makes money. But it is not just about the money and motivation, copyright also moonlights with what we call the related rights - performer's rights and moral rights - to give creators control over their work, including the right to be named as the creator.

Is copyright working in the music industry? 

So copyright's job description in the music industry is to encourage - by way of remuneration, control and recognition - the creation AND dissemination of music. 

As mentioned yesterday, music streaming accounts for more than half of the global music industry’s revenue in the UK, bringing in more than £1 billion in revenue with 114 billion music streams in the last year. The 3 major labels are reporting record highs in profits. So clearly, in its goal to encourage and reward the disseminating of music, copyright is doing a great job. 

However, the Ivors Academy reports that 8 out of 10 songwriters earn less than £200 a year from streaming. Nadine Shah's evidence at the Inquiry was that artists and songwriters cannot make their rent. Fiona Bevan, a songwriter for the likes of One Direction and Lewis Capaldi, received only £100 for co-writing a track on Kylie Minogue's number one album, Disco. So, in its duty to encourage and remunerate creators of music copyright is failing miserably. 

Copyright's Performance Evaluation

This is a fitting quote
from my podcast that will be
published Jan 2021

In conclusion, copyright is doing one part of its job - encouraging dissemination - very well, but failing in its role to remunerate creators. Luckily, copyright is not a natural phenomenon; it is human made – which means that in places where it is not working, it can be changed! As it should, copyright was not made to be static, it is constantly evolving to adapt to new technologies.

As mentioned in yesterday's post, the artists are arguing for equitable remuneration for when their work is performed via a stream. Equitable remuneration already applies to radio, but because of an exception under section 82CA(1) CDPA 1988, this does not apply to online streaming. The government could remove this exception, which would mean that equitable remuneration applies to streaming, this would capture streaming services as well as platforms such as YouTube... as such staffing up copyright with more hours for its co-workers, performer's rights. 

The call for evidence is still open, but closes today - Friday 11 December 2020.