Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page adds voice to campaign for streaming companies to pay musicians fairly
Rock musician Jimmy Page is the latest to call for streaming companies to pay artists fairer royalties for their work.
He said he was "compelled" to write a letter in response to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry into streaming services which saw Chic frontman Nile Rodgers tell MPs that musicians should be paid more for their work from the platforms.
In a post on Instagram, Led Zeppelin founder Page wrote: "I fully appreciate the dilemma surrounding streaming royalties that should be rightfully paid to all musicians and writers who made the music. "The sooner the streaming companies can make fair payments to all musicians whose music is played on or viewed via the internet, and to pay fair royalties to those who give us great pleasure from those who are exploiting it, the better."
This week, American musician David Crosby said he will sell his song rights, claiming that streaming services have "stolen his record money".
Bob Dylan and Stevie Nicks recently sold their publishing rights to Universal Music Group and Primary Wave respectively.
In submissions to the DCMS Select Committee, the Ivors Academy of Music Creators called on the Government to introduce tougher regulations on how record labels manage their artists on streaming platforms.
It said copyright laws should be changed to ensure writers and performers are paid more for their work and called for a reform of how data relating to streaming music is recorded, to ensure it is easy to identify who royalty payments should be made to.
Chief executive Graham Davies said: "UK songwriters are the best in the world.
"To remain a world leader, to recover from Covid and power the future UK economy, we need songwriters and their publishers to get a higher value from streaming."