LONDON (CelebrityAccess) –The BPI has unveiled a new set of principles designed to ensure more equitable treatment for legacy artists, songwriters, and session musicians in the UK’s streaming economy—a move developed in close consultation with the UK government’s Creator Remuneration Working Group (CRWG) and representing five years of sustained dialogue following the 2021 Economics of Music Streaming report.
The principles, endorsed by the UK divisions of Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music, the the Association of Independent Music, propose a range of targeted measures to modernize industry practices for older catalog artists and newer songwriting talent alike.
Among the headline commitments:
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Disregarding unrecouped advances for pre-2000 contracts, enabling royalty payments to flow for many legacy artists who remain technically unrecouped;
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Digitizing and actively marketing deep catalog recordings to improve their discoverability on streaming platforms;
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Providing clearer, more responsive renegotiation pathways for outdated contracts, with a standard 60-day reply window to serious artist inquiries;
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Supporting emerging songwriters with travel stipends, per diems, or expense reimbursement for label-hosted writing camps;
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And a 40% increase in minimum session musician fees for pop recordings, via a revised BPI/Musicians’ Union agreement.
BPI Chief Strategy Officer Sophie Jones called the announcement the culmination of “five years of detailed scrutiny and analysis,” and emphasized that while streaming has enabled more artists to succeed than ever before, “specific cohorts” have not benefited proportionately. These principles aim to correct that imbalance without undermining the investment-driven structure of the recording business.
The framework stops short of mandating change, but it marks the strongest collective gesture to date by UK labels to address streaming-era inequities—especially for creators whose work predates the digital boom.
