Swedish songwriters question digital royalties split in open letter

The debate around the percentage of revenues from music streaming services that goes to songwriters is heating up all over the world.

In the US, the Copyright Office recently stated in its recommendations for the reform of music copyright that “sound recordings and the underlying musical works should stand on more equal footing”.

BASCA, the British Academy of Songwriters, just launched a campaign entitled “The Day The Music Died” calling for songwriters to receive a better share of digital royalties.

Now, 133 Swedish songwriters (including several who penned major international pop hits) have pooled together and signed an open letter headlined “It’s time to thank you for the music”. The release of the letter coincides with upcoming meetings scheduled between the Swedish collection society SKAP, Spotify and labels.

The songwriters point out to a recent study by CIAM, published by CISAC, which shows that in the US songwriters only receive around 3% of revenues from streaming services, a figure that is thought to be similar in Europe. This is deemed to fall far short of what is required for songwriters to be able to make a living from their work.

Songwriters are asking for more transparency point their finger at the confidentiality agreements between collective rights organisations and digital services, which leave the songwriters in the dark, not knowing how much they are getting paid.

They also call into question the distribution models (could there be a better way for the industry to prosper?) and the lack of songwriting credits on streaming services.

The music publishing industry has fared better than the recorded music industry over the past few years, but its reliance on alternative sources of revenue may have led it to under-estimate the long-term impact of the deals that were made in the early days of streaming, those ripples to turn into waves that could seriously affect the publishing sector.

The key issue here is that very few music streaming services are profitable, and services like Spotify are already paying around 70% of their revenues to rights holders. So, realistically, the only way that songwriters would be able to increase their share of royalties would be to have labels agree to lower theirs, which is inevitably going to lead to some tense conversations.


(Andrea Leonelli)