Macron plans to tax streaming revenue for lack of agreement within the music industry – Liberation

2023-06-22 14:32:52

The Elysée has called on players in the sector to come together to find new sources of funding, failing which it is considering imposing a tax on streaming, taking up the recommendations of Senator Julien Bargeton.

This is a small announcement made on the sidelines of the Fête de la Musique. On Wednesday June 21, Emmanuel Macron asked the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul-Malak to bring together “without delay all the players in the streaming sector”. Adding, in the course of a press release, that in the absence of an agreement between the players in the music industry to find new sources of financing on September 30, “the government will reserve the possibility of seizing the Parliament of a mandatory contribution from streaming platforms”.

The Elysée relies here on a report by Senator Julien Bargeton (Renaissance), made last April during the Printemps de Bourges. The latter recommends a tax of 1.75% on income from paid music streaming and free music streaming financed by advertising. New sources of funding are needed to “preserve French cultural sovereignty” and ensure “fair remuneration for artists and creators”, argues the Elysée, which also wants this windfall to support “innovation and export”.

However, in April already, this tax recommendation had crystallized the tensions between the music majors and the independent labels. Concretely, the idea retained by the senator is to tax up to 1.75% the income of streaming platforms such as Deezer, Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music, which have not communicated their accounts to the mission, to finance the National Music Center (CNM). It is in fact recorded music that is called upon to contribute to French musical diversity. Live shows, live music in particular, are already taxed at 3.5% on ticket sales. According to the report, this should be lowered to 1.75%, the same level as the streaming tax, for the sake of fairness.

“We, in recorded music, with a full rate VAT, we already bring more than 230 million euros per year to the State with a lower turnover. Adding a tax to us and lowering that of the live performance, it is not equity: it is to dig even more this imbalance”, confided then to Liberation Alexandre Lasch, the national secretary of the National union of the phonographic edition ( Snep). In addition, Snep defended other solutions to feed the CNM, all of which were rejected by the report.

For his part, the former Minister of Culture Jack Lang quickly welcomed, in a press release, the idea of ​​such a tax. “A measure of justice that will reinforce musical diversity and strengthen independent creators and musicians,” he said.

“Racist tax. Tax not justified”

In the fall of 2022, the debates focused on a mandatory contribution of 1.5% of income from paid subscriptions on music platforms to help the National Music Center (CNM), a state and sectoral body created in 2020, to support French creation. This suggestion – carried by deputies from the Nupes left via amendments rejected at the end of 2022 – had created open fractures in the sector. Several organizations representing the music industry (Prodiss, UPFI, SMA, etc.) said they were in favor of such a low tax “which could be enough to complete the CNM financing scheme without disrupting economic models” .

“No to the streaming tax. Anti-rap tax. Racist tax. Unjustified tax”, had on the other hand denounced on his social networks the rapper Niska, calculating that the income from the streaming of rap, music dominant in the charts, would thus be taxed.