The New York Metropolis Council on Tuesday handed a decision endorsing federal laws that will create new royalty funds for musicians whose work generates billions in income however leaves many incomes under minimal wage.
Decision 368, launched by Council Member Shahana Hanif, helps the Dwelling Wage for Musicians Act, which might set up extra streaming royalties paid on to artists on prime of their present compensation. The federal invoice was initially launched by Consultant Rashida Tlaib and former Consultant Jamaal Bowman in collaboration with United Musicians and Allied Staff (UMAW).
With a coalition of unbiased music producers, songwriters and different business employees, UMAW has taken direct purpose at main streaming platforms, organizing high-profile lobbying efforts since its 2020 inception to demand fairer compensation fashions from corporations like Spotify and Apple Music. Via sustained public strain and grassroots mobilization, the advocacy group has catalyzed a broader reckoning over the worth of music labor within the digital age.
“In the music capital of the world, artists deserve fair pay and dignity,” Hanif stated in a press launch. “As streaming platforms pay artists less than a third of a penny per play, this is a critical step toward making our city more affordable for working musicians to continue living and creating music here.”
c/o Joey La Neve DeFrancesco
Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, a musician and UMAW organizer, known as the decision “a huge win for NYC musicians” that demonstrates how collective motion can drive change within the business.
“From here, we will aim to have similar resolutions passed in other cities, and use this momentum to gain co-sponsors and reintroduce the bill in Congress, and to pass it,” DeFrancesco stated in an emailed assertion supplied to EDM.com. “We still have a lot of work to do, but passing this Resolution in the biggest city in the US is a huge step.”
The coalition’s objective, DeFrancesco tells us, is “for the new royalty to equal at least a penny per stream, in addition to existing royalties.”
UMAW in 2020 unsuccessfully launched a vigorous marketing campaign, “Justice at Spotify,” calling for the corporate to remit penny-per-stream payouts to artists. The group on the time organized a sequence of worldwide protests hosted outdoors Spotify places of work in 15 cities earlier than the streaming large refused their calls for.
Spotify in late-April reported that its premium subscriber base grew by 5 million in Q1. The corporate’s earnings report additionally revealed a record-high quarterly working earnings of €509 million as its complete income ballooned 15% year-over-year to €4.2 billion. The corporate’s inventory is up a staggering 670% since late-2022, in line with The Motley Idiot.
Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, who chairs the Committee on Civil Service and Labor, additional highlighted the financial disparity going through New York Metropolis’s estimated 14,000 musicians.
“The Living Wage for Musicians Act is a lifeline for musicians who must rely on an exploitative royalty structure to make ends meet,” she stated, “and uplifts a vibrant workforce that deserves to be paid fairly for their art and talent.”
