Sacem and Deezer will pay artists “more fairly”

This is a recurring request from artists in Music: to finally obtain a fairer and more equitable distribution of copyrights. On Wednesday January 15, the music streaming platform Deezer and the society of authors, composers and music publishers (Sacem) announced the establishment of a remuneration model centered on artists, which radically differs from the existing model, centered on the market (« market centric »).

In the latter, the calculation of rights is carried out in proportion to total listening, and the biggest take the prize. For example, a jazz and opera lover, who pays nearly 12 euros per month to listen to the music that fascinates him, finances without wanting to or being aware of it the most streamed artists, therefore the very big names in rap . This logic of « market centric »in force worldwide since the birth of music streaming platforms, proves to be very unfavorable, financially, to the least popular artists or the least listened to genres.

Alexis Lanternier, the general manager of Deezer, says that their new “model ensures that a greater share of what subscribers pay goes back to the artists they listen to, while helping to combat fraud.” Cécile Rap-Veber, general director of Sacem, adds that he values “real music, taking into account the diversity of aesthetics and genres appreciated on the platform”. This new model establishes a bonus for professionals, since the songs of artists who exceed 1,000 streams from 500 different subscribers will be paid more. They will earn twice as much per stream as those who do not reach this threshold. So much so that the vast majority of Sacem artists will be better off.

“White noise”

The ambition of Deezer and Sacem also consists of tackling an endemic scourge: “real fake” pieces of music and all parasitic content. It is difficult, in fact, to understand why royalties can be paid to clever people who put online the sounds of wind, rain, the purring of a vacuum cleaner – which, it seems, allows more insomniac babies to be lulled to sleep… The A list of these “white noises” as long as a day without bread was included in the rights base, even if the platform strives to eliminate them from its catalog.

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