The proposed 1.75% tax on income from music streaming divides players in the music industry, between supporters who see it as a “sustainable” funding track and opponents who denounce “a dead end”.
This proposal appears in the report that senator Julien Bargeton (Renaissance) submitted Thursday to the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak.
Several organizations representing the music industry (CAMULC, FELIN, Forces Musicales, PRODISS, PROFEDIM, SMA, SPFF and UPFI) congratulated each other on Friday in a joint press release on the priority given to the streaming tax. A project that should, according to them, allow the National Center for Music (CNM, which oversees the sector) to benefit from a complete financing scheme, taken and balanced from the next finance bill.
These bodies are at the disposal of the State to facilitate its implementation as soon as the finance bill for 2024 is drafted. deadlocked music.
An erroneous analysis of the current dynamics of streaming
Not only does it not document the supposed needs of the National Music Center, but it bases its recommendations on an erroneous analysis of the current dynamics of streaming and its actors, we can still read in this press release.
The ESML (Syndicate of online music service publishers) is deeply disappointed to learn that (the report) advocates the introduction of a tax. A project that would sanction European innovation in an uncertain and volatile macroeconomic climate, and would impose this choice on virtuous French and European companies.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne entrusted this report to Senator Bargeton in October 2022. The idea of a specific contribution from recorded music, through its segment that is both dominant (61% of revenues in 2022) and the % in 2022 compared to 2021), namely streaming, seems to have to be retained, writes senator Bargeton.
This contribution would target both paid streaming services by subscription and free streaming services financed by advertising (…) a rate low enough not to structurally modify the economic balance between players or have an impact on the consumer, specifies The report.
All of this can be grouped into an integrated system of equitable contribution at the rate of 1.75% for all musical activities, adds the senator. It is therefore not a question of financing the CNM for itself, but rather as the instrument that it must be at the service of a new ambitious strategy.