Jimmy Page demands fair pay for musicians from streaming companies

Jimmy Page
(Image credit: Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

Jimmy Page has called upon streaming companies to pay artists fairer royalties for their work.

The Led Zeppelin guitarist said he was "compelled" to write a letter in response to last month’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry into streaming services.

In a post on Instagram, Page wrote: "I fully appreciate the dilemma surrounding streaming royalties that should be rightfully paid to all musicians and writers who made the music. ⁣⁣The sooner the streaming companies can make fair payments to all musicians whose music is played on or viewed via the internet, and to pay fair royalties to those who give us great pleasure from those who are exploiting it, the better.⁣"

In a submission to the DCMS Select Committee, the Ivors Academy of Music Creators called on the British government to implement stricter regulations on how record labels manage artists on streaming services.

It asked that copyright laws be changed to ensure writers and performers are paid more for their work and called for a reform of how data relating to streaming music is recorded, to safeguard the rights of creators.

Following last week’s news of Bob Dylan selling his entire songwriting catalogue, fellow singer/songwriter legend David Crosby declared his own intention to sell off his copyright, claiming that streaming services have "stolen his record money.”

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.