Am I hearing right?

[OneWorld]

Just been listening to the radio, but tuned in half way through a news topic which seemed to say a government working party (or whatever) has been/is being set up to look at payments musicians receive for streamed content and the payments should be 'fair' - or words to that effect, but hey, a government interest in addressing the paltry sums paid to musicians - really?

OK 'fair' is a very loose term, but it's a start I guess.

[tea for two]

I think it's long overdue that streaming payout model from such as spotify which heavily favours major musicians is changed for the better for unknown musicians.

JmJarre was for years lobbying uropian union, speaking at UNESCO, so that unknown creatives musicians would get a proper share of the pie from online, when he was president of CISAC.
https://www.cisac.org/tags/jean-michel-jarre

[amanise]

The Cynic (capital C) in me says that any interest government might have (of any persuasion) in this would be around tracking and gathering tax monies, rather than for the income and welfare of creatives - or the nurturing of a "Cool Britannia" style creative sector. So be careful what you wish for, as always, but the streaming model is truly terrible. The distributors charge dollars for their end, the promotion companies charge dollars in their hundreds for "23k follower guaranteed" packages and such. But he streams are rewarded in thousandths of dollars. They are all basing their business models on the idea that we'd all be doing this for free anyway. But then the live music end of things was always just the same - so is it all just reflecting that?
The big guys always did have a hold on everything, so I don't see that changing - because as you become successful, you become a big guy too. (puts on hard hat).

[Drew Stephenson]

There's been a select committee looking at it for months but my cynical hat says it's all just a bit of posturing to look like they're trying to do something before sitting back and saying, "Well all the streaming companies are based in other countries so there's really nothing we can do. How sad. Thank you for you vote."

[James Perrett]

You can find the full story at

https://completemusicupdate.com/article ... streaming/

Apparently it arises out of the previous select committee investigation.

[OneWorld]

You can find the full story at

https://completemusicupdate.com/article ... streaming/

Apparently it arises out of the previous select committee investigation.

Hmm, the cynical side of me tends to conclude that as soon as I see the words 'working group' that is a metaphor for some nice little earner coming someone's way, someone with friends that have friends in the lush contract department of the government, there's no shortage of 'Sirs' and 'Baronesses' happy to 'give their time' in exchange for a 'token sum' to cover expenses, at the mention of the word 'stream' maybe they read it as 'income stream', the £30billion+ world beating apps that were about as much use as a chocolate fireguard spring to mind

[RichardT]

It’s hard to see what they can do - apart from banning the streaming companies from operating in the UK, in the same way as Spain banned Google News because they don’t remunerate their sources.

[Drew Stephenson]

in the same way as Spain banned Google News because they don’t remunerate their sources.

That's one way of looking at it.

[RichardT]

in the same way as Spain banned Google News because they don’t remunerate their sources.

That's one way of looking at it.

It wouldn’t really help anybody, would it?

[Drew Stephenson]

in the same way as Spain banned Google News because they don’t remunerate their sources.

That's one way of looking at it.

It wouldn’t really help anybody, would it?

If you mean us having a debate about this, no probably not!

[amanise]

in the same way as Spain banned Google News because they don’t remunerate their sources.

That's one way of looking at it.

It wouldn’t really help anybody, would it?

If you mean us having a debate about this, no probably not!

One thing I wish they'd do is make the contracts easier to understand so that you've at least got some chance of understanding what you're letting yourself in for. They could decide to do that themselves without any regulator or government intervention. They could publish "The Structure of Things" somewhere so you knew where to go next after distribution. Both are things they could just "decide to do". But wait - am I talking about the streaming giants - or mobile phone companies here? I can't remember.

[Mike Stranks]

One thing I wish they'd do is make the contracts easier to understand...

Ah! Tricky things, contracts...

By accident, I became something of a contract specialist in three of my jobs - probably because I was one of the few who was anal enough to read them through carefully and work out exactly what they were saying.

In a nutshell, 'simple and straightforward' almost always means 'ambiguous or open to interpretation'... if lawyers then get involved, the £ or $ escalate at an alarming rate.

I've come across very few in any sphere that are deliberately obtuse... just that companies are dotting every i and crossing every t to ensure that there is no wriggle-room. If there is, someone will seek to exploit it.