Sony Music is the first major label to forgive unrecouped advances for heritage artists publicly, and the industry will likely follow its lead.
It sounds crazy to anyone outside of the entertainment industry, but there are musicians walking the Earth in 2021 who have never seen a penny of their streaming royalties due to unrecouped advances from two decades prior. Many artists with deals prior to 2000 have fought for years to see streaming revenue for their major label releases, but labels have been slow to act. Instead, many consider any revenue generated from new mediums of consumption as payment toward outstanding advances from when that artist’s material was originally released. You may have a thirty-three year old album that never put a dime in your pocket because the advance was never repaid, and until this week, every label seemed okay with taking what they felt was owed to them.
In a letter sent to thousands of artists today and obtained by MBW, Sony Music Entertainment (SME) has announced the launch of a new initiative called “Artists Forward”, which it says focuses on “prioritizing transparency with creators in all aspects of their development”.
SME’s landmark new policy under “Artists Forward” is called the Legacy Unrecouped Balance Program. The letter confirms: “As part of our continuing focus on developing new financial opportunities for creators, we will no longer apply existing unrecouped balances to artist and participant earnings generated on or after January 1, 2021 for eligible artists and participants globally who signed to SME prior to the year 2000 and have not received an advance from the year 2000 forward.
“Through this program, 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.”
To put this in simpler terms, Sony is writing off any outstanding balance for catalog artists with the label before 2000. That action means that those artists will now receive a cut of all streaming revenue from their material. It also means that they will be applicable to receive money from any future revenue streams.
Music has a long history of record companies taking advantage of artists. Our industry needs musicians, and yet, we treat them as second-class citizens. We act like they should be grateful for the opportunity to perform rather than being happy they chose us to work their release. The latest action by Sony shows that trend may finally be changing, and we hope others do the same.
