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Can Songwriters Come Together to ‘Strike’ Against Low Royalty Rates? (Analysis)

NMPA chief David Israelite said songwriters should strike against low royalty payments from tech companies. Is that feasible in the music industry?

Last year, when the Screenwriters Guild of America decided to strike in pursuit of better working conditions, their colleagues in other movie trades stood by them, even though it meant halting thousands of jobs and projects for the largely working-class people of the industry. Yet some of its top talent did not stand in solidarity with them: artists like Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo, Beyoncé(who worked with a UMPG songwriter on “Texas Hold Em”) and Taylor Swift found savvy ways to get back on the platform so they could continue to market the songs and albums they had slated for that period. The main difference was that without the MMA, millions of dollars were left on the table due to passive attribution and credit information, and it took the industry negotiating with itself to solve it; any collective action against a Big Tech company, on the other hand, would require active collaboration by the majority against an entity that may be paying some royalties to some participants, even if others feel like it is not enough.

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