Noted musicians pen open letter urging record labels to ‘pay songwriters’, offer remedies

An open letter addressed to record labels has been issued by  Ivors Academy of Music Creators, United Kingdom and signed by some of the noted musicians, including Italian composer and record producer Giorgio Moroder, English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, British singer and songwriter MNEK and hundreds of other artists of the international music industry. As reported by Variety, the letter titled ‘Pay Songwriters’ has urged the record labels to give better financial treatment to music writers. Highlighting the issues faced by songwriters, the letter said that the music writers find themselves in a “deeply unenviable position.” Stating that several songwriters learned their work at a time when they received rewards for it, the letter added that it is not the case now. It further added, “100,000 streams of a song will not cover the price of a cup of coffee. A songwriter could have many millions of streams and still be incapable of making rent in the cities where their work is done,” reported Variety. Arguing that they want to prevent a downward trend in songwriting, the signatories have put two solutions in front of the record labels. The first one is that each songwriter should be paid £75 or $120 for a day of work. The demand adds that this share should be non-recoupable from the share of the artist. The second remedy is that the writers should be given points on the master from the label share. According to the signatories, four points on the net revenue should be shared between the non-performing songwriters. Despite the pandemic, the music industry is growing in numbers. According to the Global Music Report by IFPI, the revenue of global recorded music has increased by 7.4 percent in 2020 to $21.6 billion, reported Variety.