MCPS-PRS Alliance Chief Executive Steve Porter on the continuing debate within the music industry.
There has never been more noise about the future of the music industry. Of course commentators have been anticipating our demise for years, but as the future becomes reality, the industry itself has to find its own answers to some increasingly difficult questions.
There is a lot of fear out there; music industry traditions are being challenged and the incumbents are being asked to deliver what they’ve never been required to deliver before.
In the face of the challenges and the new requirements, it’s natural that those incumbents should start to question their own positions and the motives of others who seek to align themselves with change.
Unfortunately, this questioning often results in further distracting noise within the very organisations that need to be standing firm and standing together to ensure the best interests of those they represent.
Record companies, publishers, writers, performers and collecting societies need to stand together like never before. They must also be aware of the dangers that fear and conspiracy theorising present; distracting us from building on unity which will ensure our survival.
It’s a time when we need to be more grown up than we have ever been. We need to regularly sit down with each other, talk to each other, understand each other and find common ground and solutions that will ensure our continued relevance for the constituencies we represent.
The truth is that the value of music and copyrights has never been greater. Together we can ensure that this value is exploited to its fullest extent.
In Europe, we as collecting societies need to understand and recognise this. We need to listen to our customers and seriously take note of what they are saying to us; and then deliver on their requirements.
If our customers demand pan-European licences, we have to find ways of granting them.
The European Commission understands that and we support their proposed method of achieving it.
'we have to listen to our customers and find easy ways of delivering their requirements.'
We don’t believe the challenges currently being made to the Commission’s proposals are in the best interests of rightsholders and we are concerned about the practicalities that may result from them. Compulsory licensing is something we believe should be avoided. Yet the danger signs are there unless we are prepared to debate with each other to identify a secure path to our future.
There is little wonder that fear and protectionist thinking abound; take a historical look at any industry in a state of considerable flux and you will understand this. But right now we have an opportunity to grasp the future, identify our common ground and work together to secure it.
YouTube licensed
One example of the Alliance finding solutions to ensure full value for our members is the deal we have concluded with YouTube and which we announce in this issue of M (see pages 10 and 17).
The world's biggest online community site has taken its place at the licensing table to recognise the contribution composers, songwriters and music publishers make to their business. Others will follow.
It is important that new entrants to the market (and YouTube has been around only since 2005) are licensed as quickly as possible.
Our job is to enable and support new business models by providing simple, flexible licensing solutions to any service that provides a platform or showcase for our members’ works.
We must not be afraid of any new business model, rather embrace them and ensure we achieve the best value for our members from them.
For those of us entrusted with this responsibility, it would be a travesty to let it slip from our grasp.
A constructive and authentic debate between ourselves that provides a workable framework and develops new partnerships to achieve that framework has to be the only effective way of ensuring we continue to deliver the best we possibly can for our members.
Steve Porter is Chief Executive of the MCPS-PRS Alliance