Conor Murphy (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Sinn Féin will support the Bill progressing to Committee Stage, when we will likely table amendments to it. However, it is a real shame that there was no pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill by the enterprise committee. This is detailed and technical work and there would have been great value in the committee hearing the concerns of the representative group, Recorded Artists Actors and Performers, RAAP, and being able to deliberate collectively on this issue. I know that the Minister and the Department have engaged with RAAP on this legislation and I welcome that. However, it is clear that huge concerns remain.

My colleague, Teachta Aengus O Snodaigh, being from a family immersed in the arts and having considerable experience and interest in the topic, has led on this Bill during its passage through the Dáil. It is disheartening that none of Teachta Ó Snodaigh's amendments on Committee or Report stages have been accepted by the Minister. That was a mistake and could lead to a situation in which additional legislation is required to plug the gaps further down the line.

The sharing of royalties between producers and performers is required by law when music is played or performed in public. Unfortunately, the Bill does not provide sufficient clarity on how this sharing should take place where there is a dispute. There are two essential problems with the Bill. On a technical level, it is not clear about what it purports to achieve and on a political level, the Bill ignores a fundamental injustice and unfairness that has perpetuated in the music industry for more than a decade now.

In the 12 years since PPI, which is the record labels' representative body in Ireland, unilaterally changed the system for distributing performance royalties, RAAP has seen the performers’ share of revenues drop to less than 25% of the money collected by PPI, instead of the 50% to which performers are entitled. RAAP has paid out €120 million to artists since it was founded in 2001. It brings €3 into Ireland for every €1 remitted abroad. PPI represents record companies and music producers, from small record labels to the big three, Universal, Warner and Sony. Under Irish law, PPI has the sole right to collect these royalties and is then obliged to discharge the performers’ share through RAAP. Both bodies had an agreement which operated well from 2001 to 2013 based on the number of qualifying tracks played each year. In 2014, PPI decided unilaterally to change the methodology for payment to RAAP. The bodies have been in dispute since and the matter is moving towards a decision in the courts. It is RAAP’s strong contention that artists and performers now receive closer to 20% than 50% of the fund collected by PPI under the new method of calculation. The Government has ignored all of this in its current legislative approach. The Minister and departmental officials have drafted narrow, technical legislation under the guise of implementing a ruling of the European Court of Justice in a case that was actually taken by RAAP. The Bill was drafted by a Government that is blind to the blatant unfairness that persists in the distribution of performance royalties in Ireland today, a problem which has no parallel anywhere else in the European Union. It does little to help musicians and performers. It does not address the imbalance of power that has crept in between the record labels’ body, PPI, and the performers’ representative, RAAP, when it comes to distributing royalties rightly due for public and broadcast performance. It exacerbates an already bad situation by removing the tried and trusted forum for resolving disputes over payment, the Controller of Intellectual Property, and forces individual artists down the prohibitively expensive route of bringing their dispute to the Circuit Court.

In his statement the Minister relied very heavily on the 50:50 default but he must recognise that this is at the end of a lengthy and costly legal process which clearly favours the more well resourced record companies over individual artists. In a review of an earlier copyright directive, the European Commission has said that legislative wording that does not achieve its objective is not only not fit for purpose but is not in compliance with European law. The Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Bill 2025 purports to bring equity to the distribution of royalties between performers and the record labels but it fails to do this in practice and without radical change, it will further impair performers’ right to remuneration for their work.