news category Music Industry created 16 March 2015
The Music Producers Guild is backing a campaign to ensure that songwriters get a larger share of royalty income generated by digital music sales.
Spearheaded by the British Association of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) and entitled The Day the Music Died, this initiative will focus on the role and importance of songwriters and composers in the digital music industry. It will press for three key actions – a 50/50 split of gross digital royalty income, the removal of auto-predictive search functionality in search engines, which point people to illegal content and a push for all digital advertising income to be paid to creators for all usage.
BASCA is also asking for more transparency around digital deals and is calling for improved regulation of illegal content on search engines, plus the easier removal of infringing websites and apps.
Producer and MPG Director Mick Glossop says: “We feel it is important for the MPG to back this campaign because songwriters, along with record producers, are suffering as a result of the vastly diminished income from sales of recorded music, and we believe that changes are needed in order to re-balance the income streams.”
BASCA aims to take its campaign to government and the European Commission, and is also asking its members to write to their local MPs.
Simon Darlow, BASCA chairman, said: “This is, without doubt, one of the most important campaigns we have ever initiated. Songwriters and composers are the heartbeat of the music industry and depriving them of a fair share of the digital income they help generate is short-sighted and foolish in the extreme.”
