The Keep Music Alive campaign is calling for urgent change to the music industry to protect musicians and artists from the financial effects of the pandemic.

The Musicians Union and the Ivors Academy today launched a campaign calling for urgent changes to the current streaming and artist remuneration model. The campaign has been launched as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to hit musicians’ main form of income – live performance.

The suspension of any live shows or performances under the pandemic lockdown has caused a huge impact on artist’s earnings. Live shows have replaced sales royalties over the last twenty years to become the main form of income for most artists. In the current pandemic situation, the tiny income from streaming does little to fill the gap. The #FixStreaming petition draws attention to the disparity between the huge amounts of money generated by the music industry and the tiny remunerations offered by streaming services. The organisers are calling on the UK government to undertake an immediate review of streaming.

The campaign kicked off today with the launch of a petition to ‘#FixStreaming’. It was addressed to The Rt. Hon. Oliver Dowden CBE MP, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. In a statement on the petition site, the organisers said: “Given the amount of money generated by the streaming of music, songwriters, composers and performers shouldn’t have to rely on Government support, and shouldn’t be struggling to survive… We can fix streaming. To do that, we need to ensure that the flow of money is transparent and fair for the whole music ecosystem.”

Currently, the largest streaming platform Spotify offers around £0.0028 per stream to rights holders, whilst a stream on YouTube is worth around £0.0012.

11th May, 2020

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