Source · Select Committees · Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Recommendation 9
9
The licensing and royalty chains of song rights causes considerable confusion and complexity to the...
Recommendation
The licensing and royalty chains of song rights causes considerable confusion and complexity to the system, and songwriters and composers pay the price. There is no single solution to create more efficient and timely royalty chains but the Government can work with industry to facilitate this. The Government should require all publishers and collecting societies to publish royalty chain information to provide transparency to creators about how much money is flowing through the system and where problems are arising. This should be done periodically, and in a way that is practical and useful to other stakeholders, including other collecting societies and publishers. It should also require publishers and collecting societies to put in place efficient, practical alert systems to inform creators and representatives about data Economics of music streaming 105 conflicts. Finally, the Government should leverage the size of the UK market to explore how global licensing deals could be made possible by policymakers around the world, including in trade deals, which would support creators both domestically and abroad. (Paragraph 97) The market for music rights
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
The Government recognises that transparency in the streaming sector is an issue and that action in this area could be of significant benefit to musicians. The Government’s view is that this is an issue that the industry can, and should, seek to fix itself. To improve transparency for the benefit of musicians, the IPO will convene an industry- led technical working group, with the aim of agreeing standards for transparency in the industry. These discussions would draw on experiences of transparency standards in other countries, including those introduced in EU countries under the recent Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. These standards could then form part of a voluntary code of practice for the music sector. The technical working group will be expected to report on their progress after 6 months. If the Government considers that this process is not leading to a satisfactory outcome, it will consider whether legislative intervention is warranted. The Government will not be taking forward the recommendation that it should require all publishers and collecting societies to publish royalty chain information. This is because it questions whether this approach is feasible or practical: these parties are unlikely to have oversight of the entire chain, so will not be in a position to publish all of this information. Collective management organisations (CMOs) are already subject to certain transparency obligations under the Collective Management of Copyright (EU Directive) Regulations 2016 (as amended following the UK’s exit from the EU), which require them to publish annual transparency reports including details of money received from, and paid to, other CMOs. The Government will consider whether there is scope to incorporate the Committee’s recommendation on global licensing deals into its work on international trade policy.