Paris (AFP)

An artist is not paid for listening to music platforms, where there is a common pot favorable to the most streamed: the National Music Center (CNM) has launched a study on the issue.

"Yes, it is a hot topic", agrees with AFP Jean-Philippe Thiellay, president of the CNM (body overseeing the whole sector), who hopes to be able to present "at the end of 2020, at the latest at the beginning of 2021" the results of the survey conducted with Deloitte.

"The results will tell what would change from the current system - the data centric - to another, the user centric," he says.

To summarize, the current data centric is based on a distribution according to an overall number of plays, while the user centric is based on the individual listening of subscribers.

Clearly, a subscriber who pays 10 euros a month and rarely listens to his favorite singers currently sees a large part of this sum migrate to other much more streamed artists.

"Very young listeners, who have a greater tendency to listen to the same song over and over and thus concentrate a large number of streams on little content" thus weigh on the data centric, as summarized by Axel Destagnol, product manager of the Qobuz platform.

Deezer calls himself pro-user centric.

"We were the only actor to already put this debate on the table because we are aware that there is a real imbalance with regard to the remuneration of artists", underlines to AFP Louis-Alexis de Gemini, director General of Deezer France.

- "Public debate" -

"The fact that this is today a more generalized and public debate, it is a good thing. The last challenge on behalf of certain artists is the proof ...", continues this person in charge.

Robert Smith, leader of The Cure, recently retweeted the international petition "Justice at Spotify", which calls on the platform to better pay artists.

Coming back to France, Antoine Monin, music director for Spotify France and Benelux, assures us that his platform has "very favorably received the study launched by the CNM" to "allow the various players to better understand the challenges of the various models ".

"I do not know in which direction the conclusions will go and for my part, I am agnostic, I ask to see", confides Mr. Thiellay.

"A simulation was carried out internally to study the impact that switching to a user-centric model would have, reveals Mr. Destagnol, of Qobuz. Given our audience, the difference is marginal. This is explained by the average age of our listeners which is higher than that of our competitors ".

"Is the current system a faithful picture of uses? I don't think so," commented to AFP Bertrand Burgalat, musician, founder of the independent label Tricatel and new president of Snep (National Publishing Union phonographic).

- "Beginning of the story" -

If he says he is in favor of a fair distribution for "artists and producers", Mr. Burgalat refuses, however, to sign "a blank check with other perverse effects that would result from a change".

"People have a talent for going astray (laughs), you just have to see what is done with the + bought + streams".

At the time of the CD, a record company could repurchase en masse the albums of its artist to make it climb in the charts, for a better visibility: the same thing can be done with the streams.

This summer, German courts took action against the operators of websites offering the manipulation of streams, revealed the Export Office, a support structure abroad for the French music industry (now absorbed by the CNM).

"Paradoxically, that dishonest people act in music is a positive sign, because at one point, people said that music was no longer worth anything (laughs)", rebounds Mr. Burgalat.

He especially warns against "the seizures on the playlists to guide the listening".

What the platforms defend themselves against.

"My conviction is that the platforms have not yet adapted their proposals to the diversity of musical genres, they have not yet reached their maturity. We are only at the beginning of the story," concludes Mr. Thiellay.

© 2020 AFP