Select committee: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Recommendation 2
Fifth Report - Economics of music streaming: follow-up
Published 13 Jan 2023
Paragraph 12
Addressed to Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Economics of music streaming: follow-up All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We commend the Government and Intellectual Property Office (IPO) for their work in commissioning and convening further research, industry contact group meetings and the two working groups on contract transparency and metadata. However, we believe that there is room for improvement regarding the scope and practice of the groups. We recommend that the IPO, at minimum, ensure that there is greater transparency around the groups by ensuring that its memberships, agendas and deadlines are made public and that the groups have reporting functions at reasonable, practical intervals (e.g., at certain milestones or on conclusion of negotiations). We also hope that Ministers and departmental officials will take a more active role in the groups where appropriate, particularly where negotiations become deadlocked or deadlines are missed. We also recommend that the IPO continue to build on the current momentum and good-faith engagement by all parties in the process by establishing working groups on remuneration and performer rights to consider the current evidence base and monitor developments in other countries in these areas.
From: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Fifth Report - Economics of music streaming: follow-up (HC 874), paragraph 12, 13 January 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 27 March 2023 (deadline 13 March 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government sets out progress on transparency, metadata and research into copyright changes, says it is considering performers' rights and remuneration, and will publish a Sector Vision for the creative industries "in the coming months".
- On working group transparency, the government says it "will also soon publish agendas and minutes" for the transparency working group, and agendas for the metadata working group, as no minutes were taken for those meetings.
- It says the draft metadata agreement has been shared with industry, and that once the outputs are "finalised among industry" the Government "will publish them".
- On remuneration and performer rights, the government "is considering its approach" and "will take a decision on these matters in due course", having deferred detailed conversations while research was ongoing.
- On a more strategic approach to creative industries policy, it "recognises the importance" of this and says the Sector Vision, developed with all relevant departments, will set out a "living policy framework".