In what’s likely to be my last rant of the year…

Regarding this Spotify law suit….

YES… songwriters absolutely need paying, I’ve been very vocal about the issues surrounding this all year in favour of the artists ….

but ….make no mistake people WE – THE MUSIC INDUSTRY – are at fault here….

Our data is fucked and in some cases non existent, we all know it.

Some labels / distributors don’t upload the relevant meta or do and it’s corrupt and thus this situation arises. We need a GLOBAL RIGHTS DATABASE, we’ve needed one for years. People have tried and failed to do one (at great expense like the PRS attempt…).

It’s time for this to be actioned properly with full support from every corner of the business, until now much of the industry has been a bunch of lazy bastards cutting corners or uploading bad data at the expense of our life blood – the artists. THAT is unacceptable. If the meta was there Spotify would pay.

And despite having blanket licenses in place we are letting the services WE deliver to take the blame for our industry wide tardy incompetence.

It should be us as a united industry sorting this mess out. Using this as a chance to draw a line and start again on a new system that works for all.

It actually saddens me that of all the DSPs he could have chosen to go after he’s going after one that actually recognise this fact and are actively trying to build one. I’ve seen a lot of people on social networks posting in support of the law suit without any comment on why this occurred. Read past the headlines and actually think about why this happens!

If Spotify are found to be at fault here EVERY DSP will be guilty of this without exception…….But I believe the fundamental fault here lies with us, the industry. Not the service…and we have a collective responsibility to sort this out.

Here’s hoping 2016 is the year we actually get our shit together, eh?

Let’s all try and be part of the solution, every corner of the industry constructively working to make the GRD work and look after our artists properly in the digital age.

Rant over….

HAPPY NEW YEAR, HAPPY NEW MUSIC INDUSTRY?

I hope so!

Sammy