McCartney Times

This is going to take a wee bit of explaining. Not least as, in the US, artists don’t get paid when their music is played on the radio.

In the UK – in most nations other than Iran, North Korea, and China, in fact – artists do get paid when broadcast radio DJs play their music.

The mechanism by which these artists get paid is all-important: the cash owed by radio stations is paid to a collection society (PPL in the UK), which then distributes this money, 50% direct to the artist/performers, and then 50% to the record companies.

This payout system is known as “equitable remuneration”, and sees money going straight into the pockets of artists regardless of how unrecouped they might be over in Record Label Land.

As you’re probably aware, a UK Parliamentary Inquiry is currently looking into the economics of music streaming in Britain.

One of the proposals they’re chewing over is whether algorithmic plays on the likes of Spotify (i.e. plays that have been chosen for you, as opposed to those on which you’ve pressed play) should be treated under the same rules as “equitable remuneration” on radio in the UK. Ergo: Whether 50% of the money generated by these “lean-back” plays should go direct to artists, no matter how unrecouped they might be over in Record Label Land.

Read more, click link below…

Source: Why Paul McCartney, Sting and Stevie Nicks are demanding the UK ‘fixes music streaming’