Day: December 13, 2020

APPJAG is submitting evidence to the inquiry to ensure that musicians and composers achieve equitable payment for their music and to ensure a level playing field through regulation will enable ethical business models to become the norm.

Summary

1. The dominant organisations are the likes of Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. They are effectively a mass market with millions of subscribers.
2. The payment system used on the major streaming services is the “pro rata” model. With this system, the total revenues are divided and distributed according to the share of total streams for the given payment period.
3. For a jazz musician to earn the average household disposable income (after taxes and benefits) of £30,800 from Spotify for the financial year ending 2020, their music would have to be streamed 10.1 million times.
4. Both jazz and classical music are disadvantaged. On a major streaming service a 10 minute long symphony movement or a 7 minute long jazz recording is paid the same amount as a 31-second instrumental hip-hop interlude.
5. An analysis of the total of monies accruing to record labels, performers and the collecting societies from the monthly breakdown of a French streaming company; showed the record labels taking the lion’s share of 75.7%.
6. Playlists and curators whilst appearing to provide a service to consumers are having an insidious effect on music especially with regard to non featured musicians and bands. The impact of playlists, curators and ‘play listing’ by Spotify has pretty clearly shown that whether by design or not, the big streaming platforms are creating winners and losers while they are driving what some characterize as a “revival” of the music entertainment industry.
7. The complexities of streaming royalty calculations and the fact that streaming has resulted in the ‘unbundling’ of albums means that musicians receive a fraction of the revenue once received from physical album sales.
8. The underlying malaise is that digital distribution has allowed a scale of mass consumption of music hitherto unknown and in the process lowered people’s expectations of the price they should pay.
9. There is a crucial need for UK copyright protection with teeth.
10. With copyright protection there needs to be greater transparency amongst record labels, music publishers, streaming platforms and other licensing entities so that creators can effectively use their right to audit music companies they are signed to or who administer royalties for them. Furthermore assignment of rights to a music company should have a maximum term, after which the rights should automatically return to the creator, who could decide to extend or place their rights elsewhere.
11. Finally there needs to be a programme that educates all types of music creators regarding their rights and the operations of the music industry.
    Currently revenues are paid out under the pro rata system. A change in the way revenues are distributed to a “user-centric payment system” – or UCPS would be far more equitable. Under this model, subscriber revenues are distributed according to what the individual user has spent their time listening to.

Please see for the full report: appjag-submission-to-the-dcms-committee-inquiry-into-the-economics-of-music-streaming-15th-november-2020

APPJAG is submitting evidence to the inquiry to ensure that UK music festivals and jazz festivals in particular are given the support and resources to enable them to survive and thrive up to and when normality is resumed.

Summary

Reference 1 – UK Music festivals generate and contribute £6 billion to the economy. Of crucial importance is music tourism contributing £4.5 billion to the economy in 2018. Jazz Festivals are an important part of the UK jazz Scene. The number of jazz festivals in the UK ranges from 91-200. Music and jazz festivals have a number of beneficial impacts that are social, political, creative and economic. The multiplier effect of festivals is such that, for example,  £1 spent at Manchester Jazz Festival will generate £6 for the local economy.

Reference 2 – Without financial support 30% of the UK festival scene will not survive into 2021. As the festival sector is a £6 billion contributor to the economy that will transform it into a £4.2 billion contributor with a corresponding impact on jobs and local economies.

Reference 3 – The Association of Independent Festivals has made a number of recommendations to the UK Government that include business support packages, VAT breaks on ticket sales for a minimum of 18 months and social distancing measures.

Reference 4 – Audiences need to be confident that they can attend a festival safely and that there are facilities or support for testing, which is achievable through rapid testing and track and trace.

Reference 5 – Detailed evidence will be provided by other organisation such as UK Music, Association of Independent Festivals and Association of Festival Organisers.

Reference 6 – More and more people are motivated by the social aspect of a live event. Another growing concern for attenders is “eco impact”. There is a growing preference for people to attend cash-free music events, digital payments could revolutionise the events industry.

Reference 7 – The Association of Independent Festivals has set up a number of initiatives to address these issues such as no single use tents, campaigns to eliminate all single use plastic by 2021, a Festival Fuel Tool – festivals organisers can now use a free online tool to check their energy performance in less than a minute and campaigns to raise awareness of legal highs.

Please see for full report: appjag-submission-to-the-dcms-committee-inquiry-into-the-future-of-uk-music-festivals