Legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has taken to Instagram to call out streaming service for unacceptable royalty payouts for artists.
In a statement, the guitarist admitted that he felt “compelled” to write a letter after reading the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry into streaming services that was unveiled last month.
“Having recently viewed the Select Committee for Music Streaming on 24 November 2020 I feel compelled to write this letter,” he wrote.
“I fully appreciate the dilemma surrounding streaming royalties that should be rightfully paid to all musicians and writers who made the music.”
He continued, “The sooner the streaming companies can make fair payments to all musicians whose music is played on or viewed via the internet, and to pay fair royalties to those who give us great pleasure from those who are exploiting it, the better.”
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The discourse surrounding streaming service royalties has hit a groundswell over the past few months.
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Last month, Spotify was met with backlash after unveiling a controversial new feature set to allow artists and labels to prioritise certain releases and increase exposure in the playlisting algorithm at the expense of taking a lower royalty rate.
“In this new experiment, artists and labels can identify music that’s a priority for them, and our system will add that signal to the algorithm that determines personalized listening sessions,”a press release, shared on November 2nd reads. “This allows our algorithms to account for what’s important to the artist.”
Spotify will not charge artists an upfront fee to prioritise the release they are promoting. Instead, the tool will require labels and rights holders to exchange exposure for a reduced royalty rate. “Labels or rights holders agree to be paid a promotional recording royalty rate for streams in personalized listening sessions where we provided this service.”
The new scheme, which arrived just one week after over 4,000 artists joined forces in the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers to launch a campaign against Spotify, dubbed “Justice At Spotify,” was met with widespread criticism across the music industry at large.
It felt like a real kick in the teeth for the Justice at Spotify campaign, which outlined a number of demands including raising the streaming royalty to one cent per stream, adopting a user-centric payment model and transparency on all closed-door contracts.
“Spotify is the most dominant platform on the music streaming market. The company behind the streaming platform continues to accrue value, yet music workers everywhere see little more than pennies in compensation for the work they make,” the UMAW outlined.
“With the entire live music ecosystem in jeopardy due to the coronavirus pandemic, music workers are more reliant on streaming income than ever.”
