CISAC’s Björn Ulvaeus calls for higher songwriter royalties

Ulvaeus, a member of Swedish pop group ABBA, made the call in a guest column for The Guardian. The column followed the launch of a report in collaboration with MIDia Research exploring the modern songwriting economy.

Ulvaeus said the industry needed a new payment model and argued that it is the song and not the album that rules modern pop.

“Rebalancing the Song Economy shows that we live in an era where the song fuels everything: whereas albums used to be the go-to consumption format, the dominant currency in streaming is individual songs; data shows that when people use a streaming platform such as Spotify, they search more for songs than they do for artists. That means songwriters are more important than ever – but, if you are a songwriter, the system is dysfunctional,” Ulvaeus wrote.

Ulvaeus also noted a long-term decline of performance royalties from TV and radio, which typically provided songwriters an income via sync deals.

“Streaming has changed everything, but songwriters are last in line for streaming royalties: the system works in such a way that for a million subscriber streams, an independent label artist could earn more than $3 000, whereas the songwriter could expect to earn between $1 200 and $1 400 and, even then, only if they are the sole songwriter on the track. If you co-wrote the song, that money is split between you and your fellow writers. On average, songwriters therefore earn between a third and a half of what artists do. If we live in a ‘song economy‘, that’s unfair: the distribution of royalties needs to change to reflect that.”

He added: “If I was a young songwriter today, I’m not sure if I would take a risk like that, because the world of songwriting has changed. As a result of this, I commissioned a report in collaboration with MIDiA Research to provide an evidence-based overview of how the songwriter fits into today’s music business culturally, creatively and commercially.”

In the report, Ulvaeus singles out user-centric payouts, which are described as ‘fan-centric’, higher royalties for ‘lean-forward’ songs and a ‘songwriter in residence’ model at labels as possible solutions for producing higher songwriter royalties.

Download the report below (PDF).