Fair Play for Creators

Royalties are incredibly important – they are the way that a songwriter earns a wage. My PRS for Music payments are my pay cheque… the only difference is that I don’t get paid an hourly rate for my time. As a writer, one puts in the time, but there is no guarantee of a wage, and royalties are the closest thing we have to that. We don’t get paid for our time when writing a song, but we do get paid when that song is used and enjoyed. It takes a lot of writing time and of course a lot of luck, to secure a cover of a song… I heard that some successful writers expect a cover in approximately every 300 songs, that’s a lot of writing time!

Music is everywhere… clubs, pubs, gigs, supermarkets, lifts! PRS for Music makes sure that writers are paid when their work is used, and that needs to happen in the online world as well, after all that’s where the future lies – for people accessing music and for songwriters creating more great songs.

I am delighted as a Singer/Songwriter and Composer that your efforts in attempting to combat Corporate moguls like Google (whoever they are) are incredibly worthy. In my humble opinion they are the faceless people who now control the World. So this whole contemporary issue raises two interesting problems. The first one being that intellectual property is no longer sacrosanct, this is both a very sad and very serious prospect for the cultural impoverishment of the whole human race. I would like to lend and add my support as a named artist in all respects of your future endeavours on behalf of us all.

Google has built a multibillion dollar global brand. Over 80% of YouTube’s most viewed content is commercially produced music video, made available for viewing on the Google owned platform without permission from the copyright owners of the music. It is wholly unacceptable that Google chooses to place little or no value on the music that they have used to populate their YouTube site. They claim that their business model cannot support the cost of paying for music. I wonder if any other business would succeed in using this excuse for refusing to pay for their essential supplies? “I’m sorry but we cannot pay for the electricity, gas or water as my business model doesn’t support it”!!! “Of course we don’t pay for fuel, we didn’t factor it in when we opened the taxi business”!!! Wake up Google, respect the value of the creative industries, remunerate and support them, WE ARE YOUR FUTURE CONTENT!

The Creators’ Rights Alliance (CRA) is a collective of creators and its affiliates include the NUJ, BAPLA, Association of Illustrators, Society of Authors, ALCS, Directors UK, PCAM, Garden Media Guild, Musicians Union, Association of British Science Writers, Chartered Institute of Journalists, Society of Authors, Writers Guild of Great Britain and Outdoor Writers & Photographers Guild. We support fair pay for creators by supporting Fair Play for Creators.

I am totally in favour of this stance against Google, the all-gobbling one. 'You Raise Me Up' has had millions of plays on YouTube - and sure... I get a very impressive royalty statement from PRS...of about 30 pages of YouTube royalties...coming to about 30 pence...and I think, what a waste of both our environmental and our creative resource.

Thank you so much for standing up on behalf of music creators. This is a great time to form positive coalitions with all artists involved in the creative process of music to acheive our goal of a fair and successful music industry fit for the digital age. It is time for change for the better.

It's simple - they use our music to provide content for their online services, therefore we should be paid fairly for usage of that content. It's not an unreasonable request. Enough is enough, it's time to stand up to this.

I pledge my support for the Fair Play for Creators campaign.

This is more capitalist greed and theft on the part of Google - how would they feel if their "life's work as Internet Entrepreneurs" were stolen and copied for gain by composers/ songwriters?

YouTube broadcast music videos. They should pay a reasonable fee for their content. The internet allows millions the freedom of watching and listening to so many different kinds of music which is a wonderful thing, but it cannot ignore the people that create this music in the first place. All we need is fair royalty payment agreement for artists from the Internet!

Google are currently asking for something for nothing, if they get away with not paying the going rate for music it will set a dangerous precedent, if Google don't pay their royalties why would anyone else? If you create something you should be paid your dues.

Viewing figures in the form of 'hits' on YouTube clearly show that it is one of the biggest Broadcasters in the World. Why then when virtually every other Broadcaster respects copyright and pays for the use of our creative endeavour and yet YouTube and its owners Google disrespect Copyright law and refuse to pay for the use of music.

It's great that the internet allows anyone the freedom of accessing and enjoying all kinds of music easily. However those of us who actually create the music constantly lose out when big companies pay labels to exploit that music. The creators get cut out of the deal when they are not paid royalties. This is entirely wrong. Everyone expects to be paid for their work and musicians are no different.

It's time for change.

I support PRS for Music 100%. A fair fee for fair usage is not an unreasonable request.

I support absolutely PRS for Music over the Google affair. Google is behaving outrageously in ignoring a Copyright Tribunal set royalty rate. My message would be 'don't blink'! The longer there are no Prime music videos on YouTube, the more their customers will go elsewhere for their music.

Who do Google/Youtube think they are? This is so obviously unfair. How about we ask all Google executives to work for nothing? This is our right. Our mortgages, our car payments, our lives. We produce work and if people exploit that work, we expect to get paid. Creators of music aren't entitled to copyright protection? Well done PRS for Music for standing up for us!

PRS for Music exists to ensure songwriters and composers are paid their rightful reward for the music they create. It is not a commercial organisation, but a not-for-profit collective of songwriters, composers and publishers. Google is a big commercial entity which must properly pay the very people who make the YouTube service a success.

I get cross when internet companies paint the picture of a faceless and immensely powerful 'intellectual property industry' as their main enemy just because it suits them. Those under attack are people of flesh and blood, who are passionate about their profession. When I speak with younger colleagues about their current situation I feel a strong sense of compassion for them and I understand their anxiety about the future. Some of them feel that their work is being degraded. There are those crusaders for the right to share files who say: 'Why don't they go on tour and sing for their supper'. This argument shows a staggering ignorance of the fact that so many of the people who write the songs have more often than not never been in contact with artist life. They are producers and songwriters, full stop.

YouTube is not alone in the online hall of shame where the worthy notion of greater consumer choice is used as a cloak to disguise the fact that copyright infringement happens on a grand scale.

I co-wrote 'Never Gonna Give You Up', which Rick Astley performed in the eighties, and which must have been played more than 100 million times on YouTube - owner Google. My PRS for Music income in the year ended September 2008 was £11.

Music videos and music generally is at the very heart of User Generated Content sites. It is the hard work and creative endeavour of songwriters and musicians everywhere that has been the bedrock upon which many of these websites have been built, creating along the way huge value for their owners. As well as arguing with them over royalty rates, we should be fighting them to get proper recognition for the part we've played in building their businesses.

Royalties from the use of commercial music on the Internet are a lifeline to current and future writers of music. It is a great shame that Google seems to be unnecessarily blocking what could be a beneficial deal for all parties - fans, creators and online services alike.

PRS for Music royalties make up a significant part of a songwriter's income. More than 90% of PRS for Music members earn less than £5,000 per year from royalties. We need to be paid when people listen to and download our music. It's our job and we have bills to pay like everyone else. Google made a £3bn profit last year so the current situation doesn't seem very fair.

There is a huge growth in online music use, which is not only extremely healthy, but also extremely dangerous for music creators. Today, more people enjoy more music and more established and new talent is given a platform to the public through such online businesses as Google / YouTube. However, like any other profession or form of employment, songwriters and composers have a basic right to earn from their work.

All I ask as a songwriting member of PRS For Music, and that which the Society works diligently to ensure, is to be paid a fair amount for music creators and to allow the public to enjoy the results of those efforts.

It should be noted that Google, which bought YouTube, reported revenue of US$ 5.54 billion in the quarter ended September 30th, 2008 (reference: CNN.com). According to 'The Herald Tribune', the Internet search giant said that its net income was US$1.31 billion.

In my opinion, the facts speak for themselves.

Google/YouTube are in effect asking songwriters to give away their songs for nothing. The longer music is available for nothing or next to nothing online, the quicker the demise of the recording industry.

Google is manipulating the PRS for Music dispute in a deeply cynical way; to confuse the public into believing that the industry is outdated and behaving in a protectionist manner. Nothing further could be from the truth.

I deserve to be paid fairly for my work and I am certainly not overpaid - especially these days. I want music lovers to enjoy music but my music will not pass into the public domain until long after my death. Up until that point, I am legally and morally entitled to get paid.

If we allow non-music corporate giants like Google to get away without paying for music, then a day may come when songwriters can no longer earn a living. I would urge songwriters to join PRS for Music to guarantee earnings.

We are told, all the time, that we are moving more and more into a digital economy. In that economy it is "information" and "content" that is the commodity, not physical goods. YouTube/Google are at the forefront of that revolution, of course, and that should be supported: as long as the providers of the original content are rewarded for their share in the building of that business, and have a say in, firstly, whether they wish their content to be used in this way and, secondly, can set a sensible rate for its use. It is, after all *our* content, content provided by individual songwriters and composers whose rights in that content are represented by their publishers and PRS for Music. While the distribution model has changed, the goods still have to be paid for. Goods did not suddenly become free when distribution changed from rail to road.

Every time I play a song on the radio the songwriter gets a fair fee. The same should be true of Internet transmissions.

If you construct your business model around a commodity you can't afford to pay for, it's a crap business model.

It's not up to the music business to price its product low enough to sustain such business models.

Google paid $1,600,000,000 to buy YouTube. They were buying the huge advertising revenue that YouTube generates. A large amount of the content that people visit YouTube for is music, much of it copyrighted. In my last quarterly PRS for Music statement I received 0.6p from YouTube. With over 10,000,000 views for Marillion's videos I'm wondering if there's more to come. Like many musicians, I rely in part on my PRS for Music income to live. If we are not going to be earning as much from traditional CD sales because people choose to get their music in other ways then it's only fair that the likes of Google share some of the fantastic profits they are making at our expense.

I personally think it's great to see PRS for Music doing something about online royalties vis a vis the YouTube debacle... the whole idea that creators aren't entitled to copyright protection has been allowed to slide for far too long. The age of pretending it's cool to steal other people's intellectual property is gone... and not before time.

Hundreds of major web sites use our music as their stock-in-trade in order to attract traffic to boost advertising revenue. What other business could persuade their suppliers to give them their stock for nothing? It is a ludicrous situation which, if unchecked, will devalue our copyright to the point where no creators can make a living. We all give PRS For Music a mandate to look after our performing right for us. Cynical corporate negotiation on the scale of Google/YouTube makes their work impossibly difficult and threatens the very existence of the creative music community.