Monday

25th Sep 2023

A thousand pop stars petition Juncker over YouTube

A star-studded list of artists signed off a letter to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker asking him to review copyright laws that protect YouTube and other streaming platforms from infringement cases on user-uploaded content.

“This is a pivotal moment for music. Consumption is exploding. Fans are listening to more music than ever before. Consumers have unprecedented opportunities to access the music they love, whenever and wherever they want to do so,” the letter reads.

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  • Swedish pop group ABBA signed the letter to Jean-Claude Juncker. (Photo: Pål Allan/ABBA The Museum)

“But the future is jeopardised by a substantial ‘value gap’ caused by user upload services such as Google’s YouTube that are unfairly siphoning value away from the music community and its artists and songwriters.”

The music industry accuses YouTube of hosting too much unauthorised content and not sharing ad revenues fairly with originators.

ABBA, Coldplay, Gwen Stefani and Paul McCartney are some of the thousand artists to sign the letter that was put together by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and IMPALA.

YouTube denies any wrongdoing.

The European Commission is due to review EU copyright laws in the coming months. A similar letter was sent to US legislators earlier this month.

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MEPs have adopted keenly-awaited proposals they'd like to see in the commission’s forthcoming copyright reform, but they were roundly criticised by all sides.

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A French woman who participated in a broadcast event with the commission president claims she felt threatened not to ask about lobbies and tax avoidance.

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