Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians, Etc.) Bill

Debate between John Whittingdale and Colum Eastwood

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

When, about 15 years ago, I attended the Music Industry Trusts Award dinner where Lucian Grainge was honoured, I heard from the artists whom he had spotted and signed up. In particular, I remember Take That, who said they became as successful as they did due to Lucian Grainge’s support. Yes, he does not necessarily play an instrument—he may do so in a not particularly professional way, although I may be doing him an injustice there—but he is an extraordinary talent in the industry. He does what labels are there to do: he goes out and finds talent, invests in it, builds it up and makes it into the global stars whom we celebrate.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I have no doubt whatsoever that Lucian Grainge is an extremely talented music industry executive, but would he be anywhere near as successful without many of the artists out there now who, having been locked down in their houses for almost two years, unable to make any money through live gigs, are living on poverty wages and getting barely anything from streaming revenue?

[Mr Whittingdale]

Of course, we depend on the talent in this country. Some of our most globally successful artists—people such as Adele and Ed Sheeran—come from the UK, and I must say that they do extremely well. Part of my criticism of the measures proposed in the Bill is that they will result in those artists who get streamed most doing a bit better, but those artists who do not get that many streams will not get much more money. One million streams sounds like an awful lot, but, in comparison to CD sales, it is not very much in terms of revenue generated for rights holders from digital service providers. I will come to that in detail.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) is right that, in a sense, what kept the industry going while revenues from legal sales or downloads were declining was live performances. Live performances became another major source of revenue for many bands—and it still is. Some bands do not receive many music streams but do well from live performances because they have loyal fan bases who follow them around. We must take account of musicians’ numerous sources of earnings. One of them is live; others are merchandise sales, synchronisation rights and, of course, sales of physical products and streaming. That is brought out strongly in the Intellectual Property Office’s survey of earnings in the creative industries.