Deezer & Sacem to explore artist centric streaming model for publishing rights

25 October 2023 - Press release

Deezer one of the world’s largest independent music streaming platforms and Sacem, the world leader in the collective management of creator’s’ and publisher’s rights and a recognized player in the digital music ecosystem, today announced a collaboration to explore the artist centric monetization model for publishing rights in music streaming. The announcement follows Deezer’s successful launch of the world’s first artist centric payment model for recorded music earlier this year.

Deezer and Sacem will jointly explore new ways of rewarding the value songwriters and publishers create. By reimagining the way publishing rights are monetized in music streaming, the partnership aims to ensure fairer compensation for publishing rights owners.

“Sacem is a world leader in managing music authors rights, and we’re delighted to join forces to explore how we can develop the way publishing is monetized in the age of streaming,” said Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO, Deezer. “Songwriters, composers and publishers play a crucial role in the music industry as the creative driving force behind the songs we love, and it’s time to evolve how we reward these efforts.”

"Sacem has always anticipated changes in the music market and been a pioneer in seizing every opportunity to better redistribute rights and maximise the value of its members' works. By proposing an alternative remuneration model via 'Artist Centric', we welcome Deezer's desire to put creators and publishers back at the heart of their concerns. This is why we felt it was essential to launch this in-depth study, which we hope will make it possible to increase the value of streaming for our members", says Cécile Rap-Veber, CEO, Sacem.

Through this partnership, Deezer and Sacem will analyze streaming data and evaluate the viability of different economic models aimed at remunerating songwriters, composers and publishing rights owners more fairly.

In September, 2023, Deezer announced the launch of an artist-centric streaming model for recorded music, designed to better reward the artists, and the music that fans value the most. The new model which came into effect in October 2023, focuses on rewarding professional artist and fan engagement as well as demonetizing non-music content, cleaning up the catalog and tackling fraud. In addition, the model includes a user-centric approach, with a monetization cap of 1000 streams for each user, no matter how much they stream each month – ensuring a fairer revenue share between artists and decreasing the risk of streaming fraud. 

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Based on Deezer’s in-depth data analysis the following key enhancements are being integrated into the new artist-centric model:

• Focusing on artists – Deezer will attribute a double boost to what they define as “professional artists” – those who have a minimum of 1,000 streams per month by a minimum of 500 unique listeners – in order to more fairly reward them for the quality and engagement they bring to the platforms and fans;
• Rewarding engaging content – additionally assigning a double boost for songs that fans actively engage with, reducing the economic influence of algorithmic programming;
• Demonetizing non-artist noise audio – Deezer is planning to replace non-artist noise content with its own content in the functional music space, and this won’t be included in the royalty pool; and
• Tackling fraud – continuing to drive an updated, and stricter, proprietary fraud detection system, removing incentives for bad actors, and protecting streaming royalties for artists.
• User centric capped approach – In addition to the mentioned boosts, there is a user-centric element to the new model, with a monetization cap of a 1000 streams per individual user per month. This means that every single user’s contribution to the royalty pool is counted as a 1000 streams, no matter what the actual amount is. This way available royalties are shared more fairly between the artists the user is listening to each month and fraudulent behavior is discouraged.
  
  Moreover, the size of the catalog available on digital platforms has exploded in recent years. Deezer’s catalog grew from 90 to over 200 million pieces of content in the past two years alone.  As part of the artist-centric model, Deezer intends to apply a stricter provider policy to ensure quality and a better user experience. This includes steps to limit non-artist noise content.