Music Managers Forum (MMF) president Jon Webster has said managers can help improve the flow of streaming royalties to their artists by ensuring they provide correct rightsholder information as songs are recorded.
Speaking at the launch event for his organisation’s Dissecting the Digital Dollar Part Two report, he said: ‘If you’re a modern professional manager, you need to know [about] these things.
‘It’s hard, and a huge amount of work… [But] if you want to get paid you need to do it. Unfortunately it’s part of an all-encompassing growing number of tools an artist manager needs these days to do the job properly.'
The report, authored by CMU founder Chris Cooke, highlights data issues across the digital supply chain which could make streaming royalties flow less efficiently.
Following a series of debates with over 200 individuals and organisations from the UK, US, Canada and France, the publication outlines their feedback and suggests steps which could address their concerns.
Industry consensus is that collecting societies are best placed to tackle the issue, and that record labels, publishers and societies should be 'encouraged to collaborate to identify which songs appear in which sound recordings'.
Talking at the launch event, Cooke explained: ‘Many [people] said [collecting] societies should be leading on this - and many actually acknowledged that many societies actually are, namechecking various initiatives which PRS for Music and PPL are involved with where, behind the scenes, good things are happening.’
He went on to explain that the majority of those who took part in the debates think that, when it comes to legacy data (from recordings made in the pre-digital era), ‘labels, publishers, or possibly collecting societies, could do a massive clean-up of all the data which is out there.’
However, when it comes to rightsholder information for new music, Cooke reiterated Webster’s comments, saying the challenge is to get ‘really good data when a song is written and recorded’.
‘That often happens before the labels and publishers are involved. So artists and songwriters – which really means their managers – may need to take on more responsibility for new data for new works.’
He added: ‘It’s something managers conceded they need to add to their to-do list. However some, particularly younger managers, said they need guidance on what data they should enter into the system and where – to ensure data isn’t stopping their artists being paid.’
Download the full report here.
Read our coverage of the event, and the report, here.
Speaking at the launch event for his organisation’s Dissecting the Digital Dollar Part Two report, he said: ‘If you’re a modern professional manager, you need to know [about] these things.
‘It’s hard, and a huge amount of work… [But] if you want to get paid you need to do it. Unfortunately it’s part of an all-encompassing growing number of tools an artist manager needs these days to do the job properly.'
The report, authored by CMU founder Chris Cooke, highlights data issues across the digital supply chain which could make streaming royalties flow less efficiently.
Following a series of debates with over 200 individuals and organisations from the UK, US, Canada and France, the publication outlines their feedback and suggests steps which could address their concerns.
Industry consensus is that collecting societies are best placed to tackle the issue, and that record labels, publishers and societies should be 'encouraged to collaborate to identify which songs appear in which sound recordings'.
Talking at the launch event, Cooke explained: ‘Many [people] said [collecting] societies should be leading on this - and many actually acknowledged that many societies actually are, namechecking various initiatives which PRS for Music and PPL are involved with where, behind the scenes, good things are happening.’
He went on to explain that the majority of those who took part in the debates think that, when it comes to legacy data (from recordings made in the pre-digital era), ‘labels, publishers, or possibly collecting societies, could do a massive clean-up of all the data which is out there.’
However, when it comes to rightsholder information for new music, Cooke reiterated Webster’s comments, saying the challenge is to get ‘really good data when a song is written and recorded’.
‘That often happens before the labels and publishers are involved. So artists and songwriters – which really means their managers – may need to take on more responsibility for new data for new works.’
He added: ‘It’s something managers conceded they need to add to their to-do list. However some, particularly younger managers, said they need guidance on what data they should enter into the system and where – to ensure data isn’t stopping their artists being paid.’
Download the full report here.
Read our coverage of the event, and the report, here.
