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Collectively Managed Remuneration Rights
The Mechanism To Deliver Fair Remuneration

Make streaming pay performers, through our CMOs. That’s the call from performers across Europe. Under the current system, less than 10% of streaming revenue is paid through to actors and musicians. Most performers receive nothing at all.

 

The EU Copyright Directive has given performers a right to receive a fair remuneration for all forms of exploitation and has given Member States the assignment to guarantee this and choose a mechanism that delivers effective remuneration.

 

There have been numerous studies, varying from WIPO, the UK Parliament and Deloitte to academics such as Professor Xalabarder and the European Copyright Society, all pointing to unwaivable remuneration rights as the mechanism to deliver fair remuneration for online exploitations. The introduction of such an unwaivable remuneration right is hereby always linked to its collective management. Indeed, many countries have already adopted collectively managed remuneration rights for certain forms of online exploitations and this choice is working for performers, producers, streaming services and consumers. It is time to extend this system to all forms of online exploitation.

If you give the streaming money to the producers, less than 10% will be passed on to the performers

There is a consensus that performers are not receiving a fair remuneration from online uses such as streaming. Because of their weaker bargaining position, their contracts do not secure their remuneration and producers received the majority of revenues generated by streaming services.

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If you give streaming money...

to producers...

performers get less than 10%

The Collective Management Mechanism Is the Solution Proposed by All Studies

Dozens of studies have been conducted in recent years on the ability for artists to monetise the streaming of their performances. All studies show that the current model does not work. Those that propose alternatives all lead to the introduction of unwaivable remuneration rights. Such remuneration rights are often subject to mandatory collective licensing by a Collective Management Organisation (CMO). This reduces the administrative cost both to the performer and the user. The single licence and single usage reporting is consistent with existing mechanisms for the collective licensing of broadcast and other rights.

The European Copyright Society opinion

April 2019

September 2020

October 2020

July 2021

June 2021

August 2021

Professor Raquel Xalabarder report

Countries adopting collective management for streaming revenue. 

A few Member States have already implemented a remuneration right successfully. Hover over each country for more info.

Collectively managed remuneration rights for all forms of online exploitation

Collectively managed remuneration rights for specific forms of online exploitation 

Frequently asked questions

How does the current contractual system work?

The current contractual system operates at the point of recording or fixation. Actors normally receive a buyout fee, with no share in the revenue from streaming of the film or TV programme. For musicians, there is a different system. When a featured artist makes a recording, the rights are normally contracted in a recording contract. A non-featured musician will normally receive a session fee in return for a buyout of the rights. The record company contract includes a small royalty for streaming (often regarded as secondary income) and session buyout contracts have no remuneration for streaming usage. These contracts normally did not envisage the explosion in streaming, which is now the main way people watch or listen to music and videos.



How can we be sure that a CMO will act in the interests of performers?

CMOs are owned by their members and regulated by the Directive 2014/26, the Collective Rights Management Directive. This Directive sets out rules for governance, accountability and transparency to ensure that performers receive fair remuneration for their rights.



What is the remuneration right in the Copyright Directive?​

The latest Copyright Directive (EU) 2019/790 introduced a mandatory provision on fair remuneration for authors and performers. Specifically this provision obliges European Union member states to “ensure that where authors and performers license or transfer their exclusive rights for the exploitation of their works or other subject matter, they are entitled to receive appropriate and proportionate remuneration.” European Union member states now have until 7 June 2021 to introduce such remuneration into the national law.



How much do performers receive now from streaming?​

About half of all performers receive no revenue from streaming. Performers who are streamed more than 100k times, normally get less than €1k. In a recent survey for #PayPerformers, 45% of actors, musicians and artists receive no remuneration from streaming, even though their work is played on streaming platforms. For performers who have been streamed more than 100,000 times, the revenue is still low. 70% of these performers receive less than €1,000 per year. The streaming platforms and producers receive substantial revenues from streaming subscriptions and ad revenue. For record companies, streaming is now the largest source of revenue.



What is a CMO?​

A collective management organisation (CMO), sometimes also called collecting society, is owned by rightholders and is mandated to act on behalf of rightholders collectively. CMOs agree licences with users on their behalf and collect and distribute relevant royalties.

The legal definition is:

Any organisation which is authorised by law or by way of assignment, licence or any other contractual arrangement to manage copyright or rights related to copyright on behalf of more than one rightholder, for the collective benefit of those rightholders, as its sole or main purpose, and which fulfils one or both of the following criteria:

(i) it is owned or controlled by its members

(ii) it is organised on a not-for-profit basis (CRM Directive)



Why are CMOs best placed to administer the remuneration right?​

CMOs have the critical mass of rights to provide a one-stop shop for commercial users to pay for the use of the work. They are also able to administer huge amounts of works which a single performer would not be able to do. Performer CMOs have shared databases of 700,000 performers, several million recordings and annually process up to a trillion lines of data. They are best placed within the music value chain to administer high volume rights such as remuneration.

They often also fulfil cultural and societal objectives eg by supporting performers and composers in a hardship.