IAO President, Paul Pacifico, spoke to an audience of MEPs, members of the Press, CMOs and Performers at the Museum of Musical Instruments this evening, alongside representatives from the Fair Internet Coalition partners, Aepo-Artis, FIM and Euro FIA.
"Good evening, my name is Paul Pacifico and I am President of the International Artist Organisaion, the IAO – a new association that represents the various national featured artist organisations across Europe.
Asking for changes to legislation can be difficult – it requires the balancing of complex factors represented by multiple stakeholders, each with different priorities.
But I think there are a couple of very basic principles on which we are agreed.
First of all, that creative content is at the heart of Europe’s identity and that the existence of professional creators who can earn a reasonable living from their work is supported by all sides.
We know that realising value in the digital economy requires different business models to cope with the new revenue streams and their associated costs.
We also know that at present, legacy contracts are being implemented in this new economy in ways that were not forseen nor intended when those contracts were signed.
Big artists might have some power to negotiate with their labels, but these are very few in number and certainly do not include the non-featured performers who are also so vital to our creative ecosystem.
As streaming becomes increasingly mainstream and used by consumers more and more like radio, all performers will lose out without this change to legislation – it will be almost impossible for all but the top 1% to make a reasonable living.
A number of streaming platforms work on a revenue-share model. They pay out approximately 70% of their revenue to rightsholders. It is simply not in their interests for performers not to be paid – in fact the contrary is true. The more performers are able to earn from streaming, the more they will come out in public support for the streaming services.
For the Producers, and in particular the major record labels, the change will see a slight decrease to their revenues – but something has to give and at this point in time and with the change proposed by this campaign for a Fair Internet, we present an elegant solution to a number of complex problems.
From a perfomer point of view, the benefit is not just financial. The other great benefit is in transparency. Whilst producers are able to apply opaque deductions and interpret contracts without counterbalance, this change to the Making Available Right would give performers insight into the cashflow on their works without the need to resort to expensive and lengthy audit enquiries and legal processes.
No matter how imbalanced the market between producer and artist, there would always be one element of the performer’s making available right that would remain theirs and that would not be transferred via the back door as the Making Available Right has been for so many artists that were signed before 1990."