This talk will be live streamed on our Facebook page.

This is a Covid Safe Ticket event! Discover everything you need to know for your visit to AB here.

KU Leuven and AB study societal challenges and seek solutions through the lens of music and nightlife culture. Up next: an investigation into how (un)fair music streaming is.

This debate is organised in collaboration with VI.BE.

The first of a new series of Talks will take place on Monday 25 October: ‘Is music streaming fair?’ The past two decades weren’t the most balanced for the music industry. Revenue from recorded music plummeted due to the collapse of the physical market. Revenue from streaming has provided considerable profits again since 2014, but there is heavy debate about the distribution of those earnings. Artists, even the most successful pop stars, only see crumbs come their way.

The current pro-rata streaming model of Spotify, for example, is disproportionally disadvantageous for artists in certain genres. Changing to a user-centric model would enormously increase revenue for classical music, whereas rap and hip-hop would lose a serious share. That is what became apparent from an analysis by the Centre National de la Musique (CNM) and Deloitte. So that’s something to be discussed too, is we want to save the creative diversity of the music sector.

Now that artists have also seen their income from live shows go up in smoke over the past year and a half, the criticism of the current system has gotten increasingly louder. Those who listen carefully hear a clear message: ‘Streaming must be fixed.’ But how do you do that? Does the current system need a reset, or is the creation of alternative streaming services the only solution? How should royalties be distributed, so that not only the record companies make immense amounts of money? And isn’t it high time that (new) rules be laid down in law?

Pro-rata, user-centric, royalties, qué? All Chinees to you? Don’t worry, you’ll be introduced to the lay of the land in music and streaming before we give the floor to a panel full of interesting speakers from the sector.

Program

We'll explain at the beginning of this Talk which licences streaming services have to close with which parties, how the royalties are distributed, and how they eventually get to those entitled to them. This way you’re totally up to speed with the status quo. After This will be followed by an animated panel discussion with interesting voices from different corners of the sector.

• Panel Moderator: Jan Pauly (Music business & legal advice at VI.BE)  
• Jozefien Vanherpe (KU Leuven, CITIP, Consumer Competition Market, PhD researcher)  
• Michel Van Buyten (Music Manager at Tomorrowland)
• Sander W (Sander Wolfs, producer / artist)                                                                     
• Chris Cooke (co-founder CMU, editor, journalist and media entrepreneur)

Pictures © Karel Uyttendaele