The Ivors Academy calls on digital platforms and collecting societies to divert £100m+ of black box streaming royalties into a new hardship fund

25 March 2020 - Press release

 

The Ivors Academy has joined calls for proper support for the thousands of self-employed and freelance musicians left behind by the UK Government, and looks forward to hearing the targeted measures being disclosed by the Chancellor in the coming days.

But Graham Davies, CEO of The Ivors Academy, says the music industry must also do much more to provide support to the thousands of musicians facing a funding crisis, “There is an estimated 20-30% of streaming royalties which are currently paid on a market share basis, because there is insufficient data on who was played. This means millions of pounds will presently go to those who are reporting massive profits and huge margins from streaming. This is wrong. We call for these black box royalties to be paid into hardship funds for musicians so that targeted help can get to those most in need.”

Studies of unattributable funds have demonstrated they mostly arise because many fail to understand how to register their works. When these funds cannot go to their true owners, using a market-share share model to reward those already in profit feels incongruous and wrong, especially at this moment in history. We believe something can and should be done. 

Commenting on the proposal, Crispin Hunt, Chair of the Academy said, “We are enormously appreciative of the work being done by the Musicians Union, Help Musicians UK, PRS for Music and PPL to boost their hardship funds and get money flowing to musicians. But these amounts are nowhere near enough. It is time the platforms and major labels provided help to the people that create the content on which their businesses depend.”