Sony Music has declared the debts of thousands of artists who signed to the record label before the year 2000 as bad debt.
Previously, the artists signed to the Sony Music that owed the label never benefited from streams, however, with their debts written off these artists will now earn from their craft.
Sony Music didn’t single out a particular musician due to contract confidentiality but reports have it that big names were included.
“We are not modifying existing contracts, but choosing to pay through on existing unrecouped balances to increase the ability of those who qualify to receive more money from uses of their music”
Sony will wipe all their debts, nonetheless, it’ll forfeit a major part of it and pay royalties to affected artists, backdated to 1 January this year.
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Aurelia Butler-Ball, a Music industry lawyer also said that the scheme would “unlock” streaming revenues that artists with a contract with Sony in the past were not awarded during CD and cassette era.
“Many of the record deals [made] before 2000 didn’t recognise that streaming platforms would ever exist. Therefore, artists didn’t have the right mechanisms in place to see those revenues.”
