On Wednesday 17 January, the European Parliament approved a resolution aimed at making the music streaming sector fairer and more sustainable, while promoting cultural diversity. The own-initiative report on the subject by Ibán García Del Blanco (S&D, Spanish) received overwhelming support, with 532 votes in favour, 61 against and 33 abstentions.
The European Parliament resolution addresses a major imbalance in income distribution in the streaming music industry, where many artists receive minimal payments. It is calling for a new European legal framework to regulate this unregulated sector, which is essential for access to music.
MEPs are calling for a review of outdated royalty rates and criticising ‘payola’ practices, which force artists to sacrifice their income for visibility. The resolution aims to improve the visibility of European works on streaming platforms, potentially through quotas.
The transparency of recommendation algorithms is a key point. Platforms would be required to reveal how they operate to prevent manipulation and unfair practices, and a specific label would identify songs created by artificial intelligence.
The problems of ‘deepfakes’ - an advanced method of creating multimedia content based on artificial intelligence - are also addressed.
MEPs stress the importance of correctly allocating metadata to identify rights holders and to increase the visibility of works.
The resolution proposes the inclusion of diversity indicators to measure the variety of genres and languages as well as the presence of independent artists. It envisages a European industrial strategy to promote musical diversity and support smaller players in the industry.
Read the resolution: https://aeur.eu/f/afd (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)