March 27, 2019. Los Angeles, Nashville, New York and Toronto: The member organizations of Music Creators North America (MCNA) are both elated and proud over the passage yesterday by the European Parliament of the Copyright in the Single Digital Market Directive. The global songwriter and composer community came together in support of this landmark directive under the leadership of The International Council of Creators of Music (CIAM), which is led by MCNA’s president, Eddie Schwartz, and the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA).
The Directive represents the strongest legislative response so far to close the widening value gap between those technology giants who derive tens of billions of dollars of value each year from the distribution of music, while returning paltry amounts of royalties to the songwriters and composers on whose backs their fortunes have been built. That gross disparity will now be addressed by helping to ensure more equitable remuneration for creators, consistent with general fair-trade music principles and free speech ideals.
This landmark achievement is exactly the kind of legislative result that can be accomplished when music creators come together to speak on their own behalf, with their own voices, in favor of the protection and advancement of musical culture, creators’ rights, and fairness in remuneration. We are so proud to be among the leaders in the overall movement to organize the world’s songwriters and composers, and congratulate especially our colleagues at CIAM and ECSA whose hard work in support of the Directive made this legislative victory possible. We have proven that no matter how much creators may be outspent by the multinational Big Tech corporations seeking to control the legislative process in Europe and elsewhere, the voices of creators themselves, and of a public that loves and wants to support cultural advancement, can and will win out.”
– MCNA representatives.
MCNA is the umbrella coalition for groups representing the rights and interests of songwriters and composers throughout the US and Canada. Each of our member organizations is run exclusively by and solely in the interests of music creators and their heirs. As such, MCNA’s members serve as the unequivocal advocates of a half-million songwriters and composers located in North America and, through our global alliances throughout the world.
