When you consider how little the money earns from each stream (approx £0.005 per play), you need a lot of plays and any kind of money. We do not get a fair cut.

How did we get here? The recording industry used to have massive overheads. Shipping, packing, manufacture, marketing, distribution. These costs are still built in even though they do not objectively exist.

In fact, many labels still pay to artists based on 90% earnings because they hold back 10% for ‘breakages’ (when they used to pack vans with vinyl and there were inevitable casualties).

The other big question here is ‘what is streaming?’ The record business claims that it is reproduction and so all the money goes to them, but, even to the idle observer, much of what streaming does looks a lot more like broadcasting.

When your streaming service picks a song for you do you feel like you made a purchase or like you’re listening to the radio?

If accept the broadcast model for 50% of the streaming business, they would pay licenses and we’d get paid through performance royalties (both types described). The money would come straight through to artists/players/writers and not go through the (often vague) books of labels.

Getting to a place where the recording business pays fairly has to be in the interests of everyone involved. Maybe not the shareholders of Major Labels, but just about every single other individual in our profession.

It would begin to rebuild the lost middle class of the music industry and establish a healthy system that could weather these kinds of calamities.

We need to start the pressure now. We need to move on this. It’s not crass, it’s about survival and justice in an industry that has been able to play fast and loose for far too long with the talents of others for extraordinary profits.

@bpi_music

@JWhittingdale

@JoStevensLabour

@TracyBrabin

@julianknight15

@tom_watson

@KevinBrennanMP

@MCPS

@PRSforMusic
@helienne

@AppleMusic

@Spotify

@IvorsAcademy

@crispinhunt

@WeAreTheMU

@UK_Music

@SteveMasonKBT

@thomyorke

@Tim_Burgess

It’s a #brokenrecord business.