Under a new plan announced by Sony Music Entertainment, thousands of musicians who registered with the major label before the year 2000 and did not retrieve their advances would be able to benefit for the first time from their songs.
While the move is not to pay out all debt owed to artists, it has stated that in order to account for any act with reversion rights tied to recoupment, it will pay royalties on sales and streaming to any act that has not received such payments since 2000, backdated to 1 January 2021, according to Music Business Worldwide.
In a letter sent to artists on Friday, Sony said:
“We are not modifying existing contracts, but choosing to pay through on existing unrecouped balances to increase the ability of those who qualify to receive more money from uses of their music.”
Due to confidentiality agreements, a Sony spokeswoman could not name the impacted acts, but a source informed the BBC that they included “household names.”
The move is especially beneficial to Black musicians, who have historically faced unfair treatment and low royalty rates from major record labels. Artists who joined the label prior the year 2000 are eligible to collect royalties from streaming, which did not exist at the time their contracts were written.
The move is part of Sony’s Artists Forward project, also known as the legacy unrecouped balance program, which aims at “prioritising transparency with creators in all aspects of their development”
Sony’s statement is a big victory for musicians since it is the beginning of a long-awaited solution to an issue that has long been a source of debate in the music business.
During a recent parliamentary enquiry into the economics of music streaming, the topic of writing off unpaid amounts to artists came up. The Beggars Group labels 4AD, Rough Trade, Matador, XL, and Young already have a policy of writing off unpaid advances 15 years after the last record of a contract is published.
It’s “pretty huge stuff even if it doesn’t go far enough,” according to Tom Gray, creator of the #BrokenRecord lobbying campaign for the UK government to regulate the music industry. “A major label accepting there is a problem and starting to do something about it.”
Education: Computer Network Engineering, Computer Desktop Administration
Fave Song: Destiny's Child 'Dangerously in love'
Fave Colour: Grey.
With £1m what would you do: I would do my part to provide opportunities to the less fortunate. Then do my best to change the world in my own way through sports and talent building.
