A new report has found that only 36 percent of UK club performance royalties are allocated to the right artists each year.
Independent industry watchdog Fair Play published a report based on a six-month audit of how performance royalties are collected and distributed across the UK nightlife sector. The organisation found that nearly two-thirds of UK electronic music performances fail to produce accurate royalty payments, and Fair Play put this partially down to a problem with technology that tracks the relevant data.
Less than seven percent of UK nightclubs use Music Recognition Technology (MRT), a Shazam-like system that generates reports for performance rights organisations (PROs) to correctly distribute royalties. Furthermore, only five percent of recorded DJ performances are voluntarily submitted to PROs.
Ultimately, Fair Play found that an estimated £5.7 million in electronic music royalties is misallocated each year. Just 81 percent of producers earn between zero and ten percent of their annual income from performance royalties.
You can read Fair Play’s full report on the issue here.
