Artistic Remuneration for Online Content

David Warburton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Gray. I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) on securing the debate.

When Thomas Edison shouted “Mary had a little lamb” into his phonograph in 1877, he precipitated a musical earthquake, to use modern parliamentary language. By the time I was a teenager in 1977, buying albums and singles was not only the only way to get hold of the music we all wanted, but the primary way in which many of us defined ourselves. Artists then enjoyed an incredible boom. Someone might record an album on to cassette now and again, but that would usually result in a trip on the bus to Our Price Records—where I worked for five years—to get hold of the real thing: the 12-inch record, with all its magnificent gatefold glory, in all its splendour. When we got our hands on this object of desire, the artists would in turn get their hands on all the rewards for the joy that they had uncorked, but that is not so today. Now, the songwriting artist can uncork just the same degree of joy and deliver it to the world, which can receive it with the same degree of rapture but without paying a bean. We can click on YouTube and watch or listen to pretty much anything we like anytime and anywhere—unless we are in Somerset, where there is no internet or mobile signal—and do so for nothing.

[Kevin Brennan]

Is it not the case that people have always been able to listen to music for nothing? We could listen to music on Radio 1 for nothing when we were teenagers in the ’70s. In a sense, streaming is the equivalent of that, in that it does not involve ownership. The issue is the lack of reward for the artist under this new way of listening to music for nothing.

[David Warburton]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman hits the nail with all of his head. He makes a perfect point, which I am just about to come on to; he is reading my mind.

When we click and listen, not only does the artist’s music become more ephemeral, more fleeting, less substantial, less physical, less tangible, but it also becomes commoditised, losing its uniqueness, brand and differentiation. In the way of the digital world, the user feels it is only right that the content should be provided free of charge. So now we have artists who attract huge audiences and whose content is played and shared millions of times, but who receive just chickenfeed—nothing more than a trace of recompense, having entertained people across the globe.

This began perhaps 15 or more years ago with download sites such as Napster and Kazaa—for which, incidentally, my company in a previous life provided all the mobile content globally. The music industry was slow to pick up on this revolution, but having got to grips with the download model, and with sensible paying business models finally emerging through iTunes and so on, it is now facing a new assault from the online streamers.

[Jim Shannon]

If the streaming services become over-regulated, which is what this debate is very much about, it could well be the case that, as the Financial Times has said:

“It is just as likely that consumers would sate their appetites for free content by returning to piracy instead.”

Does the hon. Gentleman share that concern that the Financial Times, and many of us in this Chamber, have?

[David Warburton]

I not only share that concern but think there is a concern that the streaming sites where the content is available for free are, in effect, pirate sites; they are providing the service that pirate sites would otherwise provide. Just because users might be pushed to other pirate sites, that does not mean we should not address sites that seem legitimate and are also providing the service for nothing.

Since YouTube is protected and shielded by safe harbour, other streaming sites find it harder to encourage users to cough up and pay for a subscription. Why would anybody pay if the content is available for free? Fundamentally, there is a clear transfer of value taking place from the content creator to the online provider. If there is an obvious transfer of value, it must be made clear that the online provider has a duty to compensate the creator accordingly. This is not much like the last time the industry faced the digital world. That time the industry closed its eyes, covered its ears and pretended it was not happening, but this time there is little doubt that streaming music is likely to be the key destination for consuming the products of much of the music industry.

The emerging business model is, of course, the subscription service, because it is the ultimate business model—it has clear, definable revenues, near certain cash flows and transparent growth. But as the streaming services see subscription revenues surging and advertising revenues bulging, the artists—the fundamental source of all that—become pretty much forgotten. That is patently wrong, and we must address it.

Government have their part to play. If the concept of active and passive content hosting is included in the Digital Economy Bill—I am sure we all look forward to hearing the Minister’s views on that later—that could well prove to be the answer, preventing active hosts from hiding behind safe harbour. Government must now work with the industry and the platform providers—the streaming services, the hosts and the content providers—to build a consensus and a model that is sustainable for all parties and that, crucially, allows those who uncork and create the joy, upon whose efforts the whole edifice is built and whose sound and fury draws us all in, to be properly rewarded and have proper control over all that they create for the rest of us.