Songwriters, composers and musicians in the U.K. have launched a campaign urging stakeholders to create an “equitable, sustainable and transparent” model for royalty distribution in the streaming era. Helmed by the Ivors Academy and the Musicians’ Union, the Keep Music Alive campaign aims to highlight how challenging it is to make an income from streaming alone.

Keep Music Alive has been launched in response to the financial challenges faced by musicians when income from the live industry has stalled as a result of the coronavirus crisis. As a first step, the Keep Music Alive campaign has set up a petition calling on the British Government to urgently undertake a review of streaming to ensure that the music ecosystem is transparent and fair.

The orgs highlight that it would take 62m Spotify streams to break even on a £25,000 loss—a figure that is unattainable for most music creators. (Songwriter and composer members of The Ivors Academy anticipate a loss of £25,000 per person over a six-month period.)

In addition, both organizations point to press reports about profits at the major labels, including the BPI’s record label income figures for 2019, which rose 7.3% thanks to streaming. This, they say, shows that some are enjoying “enormous profits” on the back of the work of songwriters, composers and performers.

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