what the agreement between Sacem and Deezer will concretely change

Everything is not perfect but the company managing copyright and the French streaming platform have signed an agreement which should make it possible to move towards a fairer system which does not only pay the most streamed artists.

CIt is not yet the ideal model, but we are making progress. Yesterday’s announcement of the agreement between Deezer and Sacem marks a positive step forward in the slow path towards fair and decent remuneration for musicians on streaming platforms. Concretely, Sacem, a French giant in the collective management of the rights of creators and publishers throughout the world, adopts the so-called “artist centric” redistribution model for copyright implemented on Deezer in France.

The French platform can pride itself on being for years one of the rare players in the sector to strive to send positive signals towards artists. One of his first steps was to promote an alternative to the current pro rata system, which means that an artist is paid according to his market share on the platforms. To this “market centric” system, which excessively favors the most listened to artists, Deezer has for several years opposed “user centric”, a system centered on the user, the subscription of which is only supposed to remunerate the artists that he listens, and not to the most listened to artists on the platform. A fairer system in appearance, even if a study by the National Music Center pointed to limited effects for the artists most in need. Symbolically at least, the gesture was to be welcomed.

New perverse effects

With the “artist centric” system, Deezer is trying to refine its approach to correct the perverse effects of the value distribution system on the platforms, which overvalues ​​hype and encourages “false listening”, requiring the generation of millions of listen to scrounge up a few measly euros. Tested since 2023, as part of a close agreement signed by Deezer, but also Spotify in April 2024, with the majors Universal, Warner and the independent Wagram, the system now introduces an increase in remuneration for titles actively sought by users or discovered in a Deezer playlist, and not by an algorithm.

Another “boost” (one stream is worth two), this one algorithmic, is also applied for artists who accumulate more than a thousand listens per month, from at least five hundred different listeners. “A way to increase the value of artistic creation”, do we want to believe in Sacem, which is also accompanied by the “cleaning” carried out by Deezer of all tracks containing noise or functional sounds (white noise, winds, etc.), which lower the value of the streams.

To limit the growing effect of “intensive users”, these communities of fans who listen to the tracks of their favorite artists on repeat – often the biggest, often rappers – as well as the “bots” artificially generating plays, the system “ artist centric” finally establishes a limit on the participation of each user, capped at one thousand streams per month. According to Deezer, on average, a user generates six hundred plays per month. So many measures which therefore seem to be going in the right direction.

The fact remains that some record companies are still reluctant to endorse the model. And part of the industry deplores new perverse effects, as well as a denial of the “user centric” philosophy, so promoted by Deezer. This is the case of independent labels brought together within Félin (National Federation of Independent Labels). In a press release at the end of 2023, they already deplored an agreement without consultation between international operators, of which the new levels exclude, “de facto, a significant portion of emerging artists, yet “professional””. Musicians who are just starting out and naturally vegetate below a thousand monthly listens. For these in particular, the model remains to be perfected.