21st September 2018

Submission To The House Standing Committee On Communications And The Arts Inquiry Into Factors Contributing To The Growth And Sustainability Of The Australian Music Industry. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Communications/Aus tralianmusicindustry

INTRODUCTION - ABOUT AM

Thank you for considering our submission on behalf of the Association of Australian Musicians (AM).

The Association of Australian Musicians ("AM") is a non-profit organisation focused on furthering the interests of Australian professional musicians, both composers and performers.

Our membership includes some of Australia's most accomplished , experienced and respected musicians from opera, classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, indigenous, world, electronica and everything in between.

AM’s members include performers, song-writers, soundtrack and jingle composers, and session musicians of all genres, as well as arrangers, producers and music teachers.

AM’s Executive Committee currently includes violinist Adrian Keating from the Australian Opera & Ballet Orchestra, rock star guitarist from Skyhooks and The Angels, jazz bandleader Sean Wayland, multi award winning composer and producer from , musician and lawyer Tim Williams, music industry accountant Peter Bayliss and Chief Marketing Officer of International David Redhill.

For the past six years AM has hosted an online forum for musicians to discuss how to reform and develop the Australian music industry. This forum comprises some 13,000 members.

You could say there are two music industries here in Australia, the commercial industry dominated by US major labels and publishers, and the Australian music industry comprising hundreds of thousands of Australian independent musicians, music teachers, music shops, studios and other small music businesses.

In this submission, we provide an overview of the industry from the perspective of Australian musicians, and offer a range of reforms proposed by our members and developed by the AM Executive Committee over the past 6 years.

INDUSTRY OVERVIEW & CURRENT ISSUES

Almost everyone loves music, approximately two million Australians have studied music, 200,000 practice and perform regularly, and up to 50,000 are full-time music professionals. APRA/AMCOS collects music publishing royalties for 100,000 registered Australian composers and songwriters.

1 However, since 2000, recorded music sales in Australia has decreased by more than 50%; and in 2017, consumers worldwide made 300 billion visits to internet piracy sites, up 1.6% from 2016.

As online piracy reduced music sales, streaming services like Spotify claimed they would stop piracy by reducing the price of music to consumers. However, streaming companies do little to protect artists’ copyright, they breach copyright by not paying publishing royalties, and Spotify’s micro royalty payments ($0.002 per play) have put many musicians out of business while piracy continues to grow.

During this time, Woolworths and Coles have bought more than 300 Australian hotels and reduced live music in many venues in favour of gaming and bottle shops. Data released to Fairfax Media by Liquor & Gaming NSW shows about “1000 bottle shop licences were granted in NSW since 2008, while about 100 pubs have closed.”

The current NSW hearing into the music and arts economy uncovered many conditions applied to liquor licenses by the state regulatory agency Liquor and Gaming NSW that restrict the music industry in ways that musicians, promoters, venues and audiences can’t predict, creating uncertainty across the live performance industry.

94 venues in NSW currently have entertainment prohibitions on entertainment, live entertainment and/or live music; and 575 venues have entertainment restrictions on the conduct of live entertainment/music, certain music genres, locations and times at which live entertainment or music must cease. https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/other/11711/Response to Supplementary QoN - Liquor and Gaming NSW.pdf

The Australian music industry has endured many setbacks that we believe we can overcome with federal support.

PROPOSED REFORMS:

1. THE ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIAN MUSICIANS COMMUNITY MUSIC PROGRAM

The entertainment, education, physical and mental health benefits of music are vital to a cohesive society. Music preceded and enabled language and communities to develop. Yet Australian music education is in decline, with only 20% of Australian children learning music compared to 70% in the UK.

According to many studies (please refer to Appendix), learning and performing music significantly improves neural pathways and brain functioning and can raise IQ by seven or more points, increase memory and language skills by 16%, spatial-temporal skills by 34%, and it improves learning in all other subjects. Students from low socio-economic backgrounds who study music are twice as likely to excel in mathematics. Music reduces crime - the 10 most violent venues in NSW are not live music venues.

The potential cultural benefits are significant, with increased IQ and memory, social cohesion and ‘sense of belonging’, enabling the development of our local music culture and the ‘Australian voice’, and a stronger prouder and more motivated Australian people.

The potential financial benefits to Australia are also substantial, with increased recorded music exports and publishing royalties, each worth hundreds of millions a year, increased inbound music tourism and attendances at live music venues, both worth billions annually, and increased employment and income for hundreds of thousands of Australians.

2 Considering these issues, AM has developed the AM Community Music Program to encourage greater participation in music at a community level, with teaching and mentoring, community choirs and orchestras, regular live performance opportunities, an annual Australian Music Festival, an Australian Music Website, a National Touring Circuit connecting artists with clubs, venues, festivals and other businesses and events.

AM seeks Federal funding to launch the AM Community Music Program nationally. Federal funding will enable additional funding from ClubGrants, the Australia Council, state and local governments and corporate sponsorship; and the community Music Program will generate substantial income itself; all of which will reduce required federal funding to cost neutral.

2. LOCAL CONTENT QUOTA

Musicians agree that better regulating the Australian local content quota is one of the most important issues to protect our music industry and music culture.

AM started a petition calling for more Aussie Music in the commercial media and it now has more than 12,000 signatures. https://www.change.org/p/more-aussie-music-please-sign- the-petition

The Weekly Aircheck Chart lists the 40 most played songs on radio each previous week. It shows that US-based major labels and publishers dominate local commercial radio playlists and distribute everything, and that very few songs played by the commercial media are Australian. https://www.aircheck.net.au/top10Songs/MediabaseChart

To put it another way, to get a song on Australian radio, Australian artists have to sign with US labels and publishers and “sound American”.

Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) has a self-regulated quota for local emerging artists. For contemporary genres like hip-hop, it’s 15% (emerging/new) of 15% (Australian) of 75% (because it’s only calculated 6 am to midnight), which is 1.6875%. For jazz it’s 5% of 5% of 75%, which is 0.1875%, which is insignificant support for contemporary Australian jazz music in the context of Australia’s outstanding jazz industry.

On their own evidence, CRA self-regulation has veered away from the intent of the Broadcasting Services Act: "to promote the role of broadcasting services in developing and reflecting a sense of Australian identity, character and cultural diversity".

Australian musicians are calling for a clearer definition of the Australian music content quota with a minimum 25% Australian music calculated hourly for 24 hours each day (currently only 6 am to midnight calculated yearly), in all musical genres and media formats (currently scaled down in various genres), in 8 categories: composers, vocalists, musicians, producers, studios, labels, publishers and distributors, with independent monitoring and penalties for non- compliance.

AM advocates regulating the local content quota and removing it from the toothless Code of Practice.

3. REFORM MUSIC ROYALTY COLLECTION ORGANISATIONS

ACCC, AHA and LPA describe APRA|AMCOS as a monopoly cartel of major US publishers (AMPAL) and PPCA as a cartel of major US labels (ARIA) working together to fix the price of royalties paid by music licensees including venues and broadcasters. They also control commercial airplay, music charts and awards, and the collection and distribution of $400m a year of music royalties, leaving little for local artists.

3 We call on ACCC to break up the cartel controlling APRA, and similarly AMCOS and PPCA, with requirements that:

- One vote for each member, - Australian writer members democratically elect 8 out of 12 Australian writer directors, - Australian publisher members democratically elect 2 Australian publisher directors, - All publisher and writer members elect 2 publisher directors.

4. REVIVE THE LIVE MUSIC INDUSTRY

All of the issues listed above affect the live music industry, because without local media support, and miles of regulatory roadblocks, it’s almost impossible for Australian original artists to sustain a career.

Audiences want to hear songs from the radio performed live, so many venues hire DJs, covers bands and tribute acts, copying US and UK artists, rather than original Australian artists. This inhibits further development of new Australian music for domestic consumption and export.

Australian cities could be some of the great music cities of the world. Consider Nashville, a relatively small city of 700,000 people, with 14.5m music tourists last year, 7.5m hotel room nights sold and US$1,000,000,000 in state taxes. Sydney could be similar.

5. MEDIA

ABC music shows like “GTK”, “Studio 22”, “Rock Arena”, “Countdown, “Beatbox”, and “Recovery” have been positive promotions for our local industry, but are often first to go with budget cuts. This further reduces income for Australian musicians and negates local culture. We propose federal budgets allocated to ABC earmarked for live music shows and incentives for commercial media.

6. MUSIC PIRACY

In response to widespread piracy and illegal file-sharing, we recommend the Federal Government require ISPs to require all audio and video files contain metadata attributions and permissions from copyright owners and report all infractions, with penalties for non- compliance, as currently proposed in Europe. The onus should be on ISPs, distributors and streaming companies to ensure they’re not profiting from the trade of stolen goods at the expense of musicians and other content creators and copyright investors.

7. STREAMING

To restore value in recorded music sales, we recommend regulating a fair minimum royalty on streams paid to creators and copyright owners. Musicians, composers and other copyright owners currently share about a quarter of a cent per song stream on Spotify and less on other streaming services. AM proposes a minimum rate of 1c/minute music stream paid directly to artists.

AM further advocates that streaming and radio broadcast are separate performances, and should attract royalties accordingly. 8. AGENT OF CHANGE

AM recommends federal support for national ‘Agent of Change’ regulations introduced by the Victorian government. The agent of change principle requires a developer to include noise attenuation measures when a proposed residential development is within 50m of an existing live music performance venue. https://www.musicvictoria.com.au/resources/agent-of-change-explained 4 9. AWARENESS CAMPAIGNS

We recommend introducing awareness campaigns nationally as developed by Helen Marcau in Victoria to address developing social issues including binge drinking, prescription drug abuse, violent security, sexism and racism; and to promote the benefits of community music events to the media and general public.

10. THE LIVE MUSIC OFFICE

AM members support the continued good work of John Wardle and the Live Music Office.

SUMMARY OF PROPOSED INDUSTRY REFORMS:

• Federal funding for AM’s Community Music Programs (outlined above); • Redefine the local content quota to protect Australian artists and culture; • Break up the US major label and publisher cartel control of the Australian music industry with fairer balance of independent Australian musicians on the boards of key royalty collection and distribution organisations APRA, AMCOS and PPCA; • Extend life of copyright in perpetuity to increase investment and protect artists; • Regulate ISPs to identify and report piracy, with heavy fines for non-compliance; • Set a fair minimum price for streaming paid directly to artists; • Create performance opportunities for developing artists; • Reform regulatory issues affecting venues; • Encourage more media support for local music; • Promote national awareness campaigns targeting social issues. • Continue to support the Live Music Office.

SUMMARY OF OBJECTIVES:

• Boost Australia’s recording and live music industries; • Increase income for musicians; • Promote social cohesion and national identity; • Revive nightlife; • Boost inbound music tourism; • Create an Australian Music Website to promote all Australian music internationally; • Create an Australian Music Festival; • Develop an Australian Music Touring Circuit of small and medium venues; • Engage non-profit community clubs in community music events; • Create tens of thousands of jobs; • Boost state and federal economies.

Thank you for your consideration and we look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

John Prior, Tim Williams, Adrian Keating and Andrew Barnum The Association of Australian Musicians

5 APPENDIX - References

Nashville music tourism - https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2018/01/25/nashville-area-set-new-record- tourism-14-5-million-visitors-2017/1065628001/

Weekly Aircheck Chart monitoring Australian commercial radio - https://www.aircheck.net.au/top10Songs/MediabaseChart

10 most violent venues in NSW - https://www.nova969.com.au/news-latest/10-most-violent- venues-new-south-wales

Woolworths and Coles buy up hotels - https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/woolworths-and-coles-have-taken-over- australians-lives/news-story/344d02196373c4f960a0d0014613ac1c

Streaming hasn’t stopped piracy - https://variety.com/2018/music/news/piracy-survey- illegal-content-muso-1202829757/

Australian music education statistics - http://musicinaustralia.org.au/index.php/Music_Education_Statistics

TED Talk about the importance of music education by Australian conductor Richard Gill AO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeRus3NVbwE

The Benefits of Music Education - http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/music-arts/the- benefits-of-music-education/

Playing music can raise your IQ by seven or more points - https://www.inc.com/melanie- curtin/want-to-raise-your-iq-neuroscience-says-to-take-up-this-easy-habit.html

Music Training Helps Learning & Memory - https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201007/music-training-helps- learning-memory

Weekly keyboard lessons improves spatial-temporal skills 34% - http://www.effectivemusicteaching.com/articles/directors/18-benefits-of-playing-a- musical-instrument/

Music improves memory and language skills 16% - http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/07/29/911523.htm

Playing Music Benefits Your Brain More than Any Other Activity - https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/29/music-brain-ted-ed

Good reasons why your child should study music - http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/homework-and-study/other-subjects-and-projects/the- arts/why-your-child-should-study-music

Musical intervention enhances infants’ neural processing - http://www.pnas.org/content/113/19/5212

Listening to music improves recovery after surgery - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150812200431.htm

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