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Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

Abstract

As streaming becomes the dominant means of music consumption around the globe, songwriters have lost out to music publishers in the contracting process. Ultimately, songwriters are making less money than they used to. Some countries have opted to address this growing problem. Various European countries, including Belgium, have made great strides towards levelling the playing field, to the benefit of songwriters. The subject of equitable remuneration (ER) in the music industry is one that garners ever-more attention, particularly as streaming giants like Spotify win an ever-larger proportion of the music market. Thus far, ER regimes have focused largely on featured artists (performing artists), but it has also been applied to songwriters. Belgium has included an ER provision for featured artists as part of its implementation of the European Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (2019). As recently as May 2024, the National Music Publishers Association asked Congress to make changes to the licensing framework in which songwriters operate.1 This note seeks to provide alternatives to the blanket licensing system currently in place in the U.S. by comparing the Belgian and American systems - suggesting that the U.S. adopt the Belgian approach to ER by eliminating some of the intermediary bodies that siphon money away from songwriters. Ultimately, one of the most notable benefits of implementing an equitable remuneration (or equitable remuneration-like) system in the U.S. would be not only level the playing field between songwriters and the companies that use their songs, but also level the playing field between the industry's largest players and the many thousands of songwriters who lack the institutional backing and clout of their more well-known peers.

Disciplines

Comparative and Foreign Law | Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law | Intellectual Property Law | International Law | Law

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