Music Business Worldwide reports
Record companies, both majors and indies, are up in arms over suggestions from a British politician that signed artists should see a portion of their UK streaming royalties bypass the label system entirely, and be paid to performers directly via a collection society.
This recommendation appears in a draft Bill titled Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians, Etc) , which was published today (November 24) by Labour politician Kevin Brennan and will be presented to UK Parliament next Friday (December 3).
Brennan sits on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee (DMCS), the cross-party UK Parliamentary group which, back in January, grilled (on a live video stream) the country’s major label heads during an inquiry into the Economics of Music Streaming.
The findings of that inquiry resulted in an infamously major label-critical report published in July.
One specific recommendation from said report was for artists in the UK to start being paid royalties for streams via a system of ‘Equitable Remuneration’.
The draft ‘Brennan Bill’, published today, seeks to write this model of Equitable Remuneration (ER) into UK law.
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