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02.10.2019

SKW Schwarz for the first time with its own panel at the Reeperbahn Festival

The Reeperbahnfestival in Hamburg has become Europe's most important meeting for the music industry. SKW Schwarz has now accompanied this year's Reeperbahn Festival (18.09.-21.09.2019) for the first time with its own panel event. The title of the panel event in the ONYX hotel was "Transparency 3.0 - Where's The Money?"

Sales in the music industry are once again good. The interest of consumers in using music and the scope of its use continue to increase. The music is almost exclusively exploited by digital distributors and platforms such as Spotify and Youtube. In the current digital distribution structure, however, a high intensity of use with small margins regularly leads to high revenues for digital distributors and platforms and inappropriately low revenues for rights owners and creatives.

Against this background, the aim was to work with industry experts to develop a status quo and, at the same time, a vision for the issues of "appropriate remuneration" and "value gap". The discussion focused on the technical, organisational, structural and legal framework conditions needed to further promote the digital transformation and ensure adequate, transparent remuneration for artists, authors, labels and publishers in the future. At the panel, the Hamburg artist Mia, Guido Evers, Managing Director of GVL, Thomas Theune, Director of Broadcasting and Online of GEMA, Frank Fenslau, Co-Founder of the label We are Diamond and Dr. Eberhard Kromer, SKW Partner and Music and Media Attorney, participated in the discussion - partly with their own initial lectures. The event was organized and moderated by Götz Schneider-Rothhaar, also partner of SKW Schwarz and music and media lawyer.

The interest in the event was exceptionally high. The title and topic obviously addressed many of the conference topics of the Reeperbahn Festival. Various decision-makers from the industry also attended the event and contributed intensively with questions. The result of a committed discussion was that although both the collecting societies GEMA and GVL, as well as other players in the music industry, have already taken a big step in the digital transformation, even with high investments, the legal requirement of an appropriate remuneration is not yet nearly fulfilled. It will therefore be necessary not only to meet even greater technical requirements within the framework of digital evaluation, but also to ensure that the extensive uses are actually recorded and at least in total adequately remunerated. In addition, new and differently structured agreements are needed, for example between labels and artists. In the areas of dance and hip-hop in particular, there are already more progressive, transparent and successfully implemented contract and remuneration models with short terms and transparently settled participations. However, these agreements have not yet reached a broad audience.

It was a very successful event with top-class panel participants and an equally top-class audience. After the event, SKW Schwarz invited the panel participants and panel visitors to a get-together in the foyer of the ONYX hotel. Here, too, the topics were discussed intensively. All in all, the event was a complete success.

Authors

Götz Schneider-Rothhaar

Götz Schneider-Rothhaar

Partner

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Eberhard Kromer

Dr. Eberhard Kromer

Partner

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