We’d like to invite you to join us in establishing an industry-wide movement designed to help artists struggling financially during the coronavirus pandemic. While the government stimulus and relief funds established by some organizations are helpful, we as an industry can do more.
Specifically, we’re encouraging any service that pays artists to pledge themselves to take one or both of the following steps for the next 90 days
- Pay Artists Faster: set a goal to speed up accounting and distribution activities so that artists are paid in half the time it might normally take.
- Pay Artists More: reduce your commission/revenue share by 30%, and pass the difference along to artists
The petition was inspired by a recent Op-Ed piece by our CEO Matt Smith, which you can read here:
What the Music Industry Must Do To Protect Our Own 'At-Risk' Population
By taking proactive steps to speed and increase artists payments, we can directly assist the artists affected by this pandemic without requiring them to apply for assistance or fill out a lot of forms. They’ll just get a bigger check, faster, automatically.
Yes, it will take some administrative work to speed up payments. And we’ll certainly all feel the sting of a 30% cut in revenue. But we can manage for 90 days. The impact of these moves will soon fade for us, but can make a permanent difference for the artists we serve.
To get things started, we’ve published a Change.org petition. Companies who sign it will pledge to take one or both of these steps, and encourage other companies to do the same.
The link to the petition is: http://chng.it/kpKvGcXRXY
We're asking for your support of this petition by:
- Signing it
- Sharing it with your network
- Announcing publicly the steps your taking to either pay faster or pay more
If you'd like to promote the petition to others in your network, please also share the link and use the hashtag: #CovidChallenge.
As individual companies, we can make a small difference. As an industry, we can make a much bigger impact. So we hope you’ll consider supporting this effort with your signature and your policies.
Sign and share the petition today: http://chng.it/kpKvGcXRXY
