Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 63:

In page 52, between lines 30 and 31, to insert the following: “Sound Streaming Media and Music Sharing Platform Services

46LA.(1) The Commission shall, no later than one year after its establishment, designate as a category of services the sound streaming media and music-sharing platform services under the jurisdiction of the State.

(2) The Commission shall designate as a named service under this section any relevant online service that appears to the Commission to be a sound streaming media and music-sharing platform service under the jurisdiction of the State.

(3) Where the Commission has reason to believe that a relevant online service may be a sound streaming media and music-sharing platform service under the jurisdiction of the State, the Commission shall issue a notice requiring the provision of any information that appears to the Commission to be relevant for the purpose of complying with subsection (2).

(4) The Commission shall make rules for determining whether a sound streaming media and music-sharing platform service provider has such a low turnover or low audience as to mandate its exemption from the rules under this section.

(5) In making rules under subsection (4), the Commission shall have regard to any relevant characteristics of the market in which a sound streaming media or music-sharing platform service provider under the jurisdiction of the State provides a sound streaming media or music-sharing platform service, including—

(a) the turnover of the provider from the service in the market, as a proportion of the total turnover of providers of sound streaming media and music-sharing platform services from those services in the market, and

(b) the number of audience members of the service in the market, as a proportion of the total number of audience members for sound streaming media and music-sharing platform services in the market.

(6) The Commission may make rules prescribing records a provider must keep and any other action a provider must take to enable compliance with the requirement in subsection (1) to be assessed.

(7) A failure to comply with subsection (1) or any rules made under subsection (6) is a contravention for the purposes of Part 8B.

Sound & Music Media Levy

46LB. (1) An annual levy shall be imposed on all named service providers designated under section 46LA(2), unless exempted under section 46LA(4), of 20 per cent of the net annual revenue derived by that company for the provision of sound streaming media and music-sharing platform services, through subscriptions, advertising or other associated incomes, for the year previous.

(2) The proceeds of the levy described in subsection (1) shall be provided for a scheme of funds to be administered by the Arts Council and granted to provide support for the following purposes:

(a) the creation, production and performance of music that qualifies as music of Irish cultural expression across a wide range of musical genres.

(b) sound broadcasting licence holders to commission or produce programmes or radio content promoting and airing music of Irish cultural expression across a wide range of musical genres.

(3) For the purposes of this section, music of Irish cultural expression is defined as any performance or work of music that satisfies any two or more of the following conditions:

(a) the music or lyrics are composed or written by a resident of the island of Ireland or associated small offshore islands;

(b) at least one of the artists involved in the performance of the music is a resident of the island of Ireland or associated small offshore islands;

(c) the performance is recorded entirely on the island of Ireland or associated small offshore islands or performed wholly and broadcast live on the island of Ireland or associated small offshore islands;

(d) the majority of the lyrics are in the Irish language.

(4) The scheme outlined in subsection (2) shall allocate not less than 25 per cent of its annual funds for the creation, production, promotion and airing of music of Irish cultural expression with lyrics in the Irish language, and this shall be distributed across a wide range of musical genres.”

These amendments seek to emulate the audiovisual media services levy which has been proposed to target Netflix and Amazon Prime. In this case we propose a levy which could be imposed on music sharing and sound streaming media platforms such as Spotify. The levy would be used to fund a scheme to be administered by the Arts Council to support the creation, production and performance of Irish music and programming of traditional sound broadcasting services such as radio stations that air Irish music. The Minister mentioned the sound and vision fund. This would probably complement that if we put a levy on the likes of Spotify, although I am not picking on Spotify only. There are quite a number of platforms. Similar to amendment No. 62 which was already discussed, we are not limiting this to Irish language music but also including music of Irish cultural expression, in line with the criteria used in Canada, which are music, artist, performance and lyrics, MAPL, which would cover music and lyrics composed by a resident on the island of Ireland, in this case an artist resident on the island, or a performance recorded in Ireland. There are measures already used for rights when music is played, but artists from elsewhere in the European Union, because we are in the European Union, would not be excluded from receiving this funding as long as they perform in Ireland or performed music composed by an Irish resident. This is to ensure we are in compliance with any EU rules or directives.

The aim is to address three problems. The first is that musicians are struggling. This gives them a bit more bargaining power and allows them to earn more because their music will be played, the idea being to encourage the playing of their music or for them to have access to funding from the fund created by this levy. Second, radio stations are struggling to compete against the likes of Spotify and others. There is an over-reliance on commercially produced music from America and Britain. I discussed this earlier. There is not a clear Irish identity. This would encourage local radio stations to play local musicians and there would be financial reward for those musicians. Third, a massive amount of money from those listening to Irish music leaves these shores to go to streaming services which have no loyalty to Ireland, as money has no loyalty once it goes into the commercial sphere. This is a way of ensuring they pay a dividend. The amendment sets a 20% levy. Some might argue that is too high. We could start at a lower rate. This is based on discussions over the years going back to former Deputy Willie Penrose, which is neither today or yesterday, arguing for the need for a fund to be ring-fenced to ensure we can protect Irish musicians, encourage them and ensure their music is heard in Ireland at the same level, if at all possible, as some music which is commercially produced in English and that comes from other jurisdictions such as the United States and Britain. Now, with Britain out of the EU, this would be encouraged by the EU and I do not think it would be contrary to any EU legislation.