European Music Managers Alliance wants streaming business changes

The demands were noted in a statement issued by the association, which is headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia. It touches on the increasingly important role that streaming is playing during a time when concerts are on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the $1m per hour that it generates for the big three record labels.

The organisation represents more than 1 400 members around the world, including European songwriters, musicians, producers and DJs. It pinpoints four areas that it believes need urgent attention.

“As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, music streaming has assumed a new importance,” EMMA says. “While other revenues paused overnight, services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Deezer ensured the recorded music business continued to function. The world’s three major record labels currently generate more than $1m per hour from streaming. The need for change has become critical. It must happen now.”

EMMA called for new contracts between artists and major music corporations to be modified, including bringing an end to “practices whereby three major labels receive substantial, upfront and unattributable payments as part of their licensing agreements.”

The body added that black box royalties had to be phased out, claiming that the multibillion-dollar funds typically belong to the lowest-paid songwriters but are often “reallocated by market share to the highest-earning” songwriters.

Next, the alliance expressed support for new streaming payment models. It said the models should focus mainly on a user-centric payment structure designed to counter stream manipulation and fraud by distributing royalties directly to individual creators based on fan interest as opposed to a share of total streams.

EMMA’s final suggestion concerns a coordinated, European Union-wide reopening effort for music and cultural industries after the pandemic (read EMMA’s full statement, attached below).

Meanwhile, a coalition of American music makers called the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers recently launched the Justice at Spotify campaign, which makes a number of demands on the music streaming service. The demands echo those made by EMMA as well as the #BrokenRecord and #FixStreaming campaigns in the UK, which are pushing for better cent-per-stream payouts.

In addition, the British Parliament launched in mid-October an inquiry into the economic impact of music streaming on artists and record labels. 

“With streaming currently accounting for more than half of the global music industry’s revenue, this inquiry will look at the business models operated by platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Google Play,” the Parliament said. “Music streaming in the UK brings in more than £1bn [$1.3bn] in revenue with 114 billion music streams in the last year. However, artists can be paid as little as 13% of the income generated.”