Warner Music Group has today (February 1) announced that it will be scrapping any unrecouped debt for artists who signed to the label before the year 2000.
The move follows Sony Music’s announcement last year that it would begin to pay royalties from streaming and other revenue streams to thousands of artists who signed deals with the label before 2000 and were yet to recoup their advances.
WMG, the worldās third largest music rights company, issued a statement confirming it would be following suit with the introduction of a “legacy unrecouped advances program”, which is set to be put into effect on July 1.
“[Weāve] announced a legacy unrecouped advances program where, for our artists and songwriters who signed to us before 2000 and didnāt receive an advance during or after 2000, we wonāt apply their unrecouped advances to royalty statements for any period beginning July 1, 2022 or after,” Warner said in a statement (via Music Business Worldwide).
“The program will also benefit other artist royalty participants such as producers, engineers, mixers and remixers.”
This means that for any heritage artist whose monthly royalties were being kept by Warner due to them having not recouped their original label advances, they will now begin to receive these payments retroactively from this summer.
This move is the latest in a series from WMG with artists and writers in mind. Since 2009, the label has been sharing all advances and minimum guarantees from streaming services with artists ā “treating breakage like other digital revenue”.
In 2016, Warner became the first major music company to confirm it would be sharing any proceeds from the sale of its equity in Spotify with its artists.
According to MBW, sources have claimed that Universal Music will also be introducing a policy that will effectively wipe unrecouped balances for many heritage artists and songwriters on the label’s books. This policy is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Both the Music Managers Forum (MMF) and Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) previously recommended wiping unrecouped balances toĀ the Department of Culture, Media and Sport select committee hearing on streaming that took place in 2020.
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