Sony Music will pay digital royalties to heritage artists with unrecouped balance sheets

By Emmanuel Legrand

Sony Music Group has become the first major record company to announce that it will start paying legacy artist royalties for the use of their recordings by streaming services even if they have not recouped advances from deals made in the pre-digital era. 

  Through the Legacy Unrecouped Balance Programme, Sony Music will stop applying existing unrecouped balances to artists for earnings generated after January 1, 2021. The programme will be open to artists (as well as producers, musicians, etc) whose recordings were made prior to the year 2000 and have not received an advance from the year 2000 forward. 

  “Through this programme, we are not modifying existing contracts, but choosing to pay through on existing unrecouped balances to increase the ability of those who qualify to receive more money from uses of their music,” reads the letter. 

Provide artists with best services  

  Sony said in the letter that the decision was part of the company's "mission to provide artists with the best levels of service." It added: ”The programme we are announcing today is part of that continuing work and further builds on our initiatives and investments in modernised contracts, flexible deal options, advanced data and analytics insights for creators and more.”  

  Companies such as Beggars Group in the UK or BMG have already put in place programmes to remunerate artists fairly for the digital use of music and cancel historic unrecouped advances. Beggars Group Founder and CEO Martin Mills has been an early advocate of the measure, and has invited major companies implement similar policies, until now without success.   

  At this stage, neither Universal Music Group nor Warner Music Group have announced the would follow Sony Music.  

A welcome initiative

  Annabella Coldrick, CEO of the Music Managers Forum (MMF) in the UK, called Sony Music's move as "a very important, timely and welcome initiative." 

  She added: "The MMF have been calling for a more progressive approach to tackling outdated contractual terms for some time, including a write-off of historic un-recouped balances. It is imperative that artists signed in an analogue era can also benefit from the boom in online streaming."