Guest: Jay Savage joins John to describe the valuable recent UN Determination that has studied the development of the digital music marketplace, the crucial economic and legal considerations that must be heard and the enforcement of change that is long overdue.
It is The UN’s position is that the exploitation of music amounts to a violation of human rights and a contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which “guarantees” to creators a “fair remuneration”.
The Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights:
The recorded music business has radically changed since the WIPO Internet Treaties. Commercial and technological drivers of change have been on an accelerated pace since Napster. The trend has been particularly pronounced over the last five years driven by the dominant music streaming platforms, such as Apple Music and Spotify. Spotify’s 2018 direct public offering as a “pure play” music service demonstrated the value of the recordings created by performers and did so with disproportionately little revenue paid to featured performers and no revenue paid to non-featured performers. These market forces have exposed a pronounced imbalance between the significant market benefit to streaming music platforms derived from the world’s performers compared to the relatively scant financial benefit received by these same performers. The systemic imbalance is particularly acute for non-featured performers. This study analyzes some of its causes and, after examining different alternatives, suggests a path forward to require an additive payment to both featured and non-featured performers paid by streaming platforms as the best option possible.
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