NORWAY
1) NEMAA together with other music industry stakeholders (members of MIR organization: musikkindistrien.no) as well as Virke (trade and service industry organization) have been heavily involved in monitoring COVID-19 situation and its impact on the business.
2) The government has so far proposed two support packages for the music industry:
Governmental Emergency package I
- All cultural funding will be paid out even for cancelled and postponed shows
- Temporary leave notice has been reduced from 15 to 2 days.
- Payment dates for advance company taxes has been postponed by 2 months
- Banks reduced monthly loans payments of their clients
- Government will support employers, covering costs of employees on temporary leave after 2 days iso 15 days
- In order to secure industry’s liquidity, government has given a bank guarantee of 100 billion NOK for bigger and medium to small business to request for low interest rates
Governmental Emergency package II
- Financial package of 300 million NOK (25 mill EUR) to the whole culture section.
- Sole traders are getting social help during the first 17 days.
- Self-employed daycare money is now increased to 80% from 60%
- Additional digital marketing funding set up at Music Norway (international only)
- Employer’s taxes have been reduced from 4 to 2% for a period of time
SWEDEN
- The Swedish government is offering a support package of SEK 500 million toward the culture sector. It has not been yet decided on what terms this grant would be provided to companies in the culture sector or culture workers. However the government confirmed that concert promoters and musicians suffering from canceled shows will be compensated.
- SAMI (Swedish Artists’ and Musicians’ Interest Organisation) has moved their next payout date from November to this summer.
FINLAND
- The Finnish Government is supporting companies & corporations with EUR 15 billion. Out of this: EUR 700M has been allocated to Business Finland and 300M EUR to the Centre for economic development, unemployment benefits for all entrepreneurs including freelancers, etc. The exact amount for the cultural sector is not known yet. In parallel EUR 1.5M has been allocated as extra tax-free grants for cultural sector applicants.
FRANCE
MMF France is lobbying on behalf of managers and artists with the following requests to the CNM (National Center for Music):
- A strong gesture from the CNM, recognizing the importance of managers and access to current and future grants directed towards professionals in the sector, in the same way as grants to artists and producers (labels, tour)
- An assurance that the structures of managers (small companies) will be considered to belong to a particularly affected sector and compensated up to the € 1,500 monthly promised by the government. Otherwise, the CNM may offer identical compensation to the managers affected.
- An obligation for show / festival producers to maintain the fees for artists, when the subsidizers undertake to maintain their grant, as well as, of course, the maintenance by the producers of the commission for the artists managers.
- A strong and urgent incentive from the media & broadcasters (TV, Radio, DSP, etc.) to support recent French production. This will allow a higher performing rights). And the same incentive for film, television and advertising production to seek and use French musical productions in their content.
- A request to the major labels and indie labels who can afford it, a break on the overlapping of contractual advances and allow a total payment of the royalties due, without restraint, to the artists and therefore the commission due to their managers.
- A request to labels to establish quarterly (and not semi-annual) royalties to accelerate the remuneration of artists, (or their structures if licensed), and therefore the commission due to their managers.
- A strong incentive from DSPs (Deezer, Spotify, TIDAL, Apple Music …) to switch their model to a “User-Centric Payment System” which benefit creators and their entire ecosystem, based on the subscriptions of listeners, rather than through volumes that benefit the most massively streamed artists.
NETHERLANDS
- 3 month minimum income guarantee of EUR 1000,- to EUR 1500,- per self employed musician / creative worker or entrepreneur from the Dutch government (Mar – May)
- SENA (our neighbouring rights society) has created a EUR 200K production fund in order to keep musicians working on new music
- The big government art funds have stated that they will be lenient / flexible with the performance parameters that were attached to the issued grants (so if you don’t meet, for example, the number of shows or a planning, you can still keep the funding).
- The Popcoalitie (a formal representative body for the pop music sector in the Netherlands) has created a sectorial Corona damage hotline where you can report an estimate of your loss in income.
- Bottom up initiatives like Pleasedontstopthemusic.nl where you can buy music and merch from Dutch artists in order to support these artists directly.
- There’s a lobby by BUMA Stemra (CMO) for public radio to start playing more Dutch artists so they will have more income on their rights. BUMA STEMRA plan:
– a total payout of EUR 15M on copyright generated income will be paid forward
– SENA (neighbouring rights) and Buma Stemra created an emergency fund of EUR 4M
– a request is sent to the Dutch government to up this by EUR 8M to a total of 12M EUR
POLAND
- The self-employed can apply for 3-months exemption from social insurance contributions and one-time support of ~500 EUR from the government
- The Ministry of Culture assigned PLN 15M (~EUR 4M) to a special grant program “Online Culture” to finance activities related to the presentation of cultural events and providing online cultural resources
UNITED KINGDOM
There is a plethora of activity in the UK music industry and by the government to stem the financial fallout from the Corona pandemic. For resources and useful information about all local activities please go to the MMF UK website: here