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The UK government has been urged to appoint a freelance commissioner to better understand the issues facing freelance workers by a group of four organisations who manage and collect royalties on behalf of their members, including The Authors’ Licensing & Collecting Society (ALCS).
Also giving evidence on 19th September to the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee about the issues around creator remuneration in the UK were the British Equity Collecting Society, the Design & Artist Copyright Society and Directors UK.
Dame Caroline Dinenage MP, committee chair, asked for evidence to examine working practices across the creative industries, including the increased precariousness of employment and falling remuneration for creators.
UK creators said they rely on a wide portfolio of earnings from commissioned work, sales, and royalties to sustain their careers and expressed concern that remuneration across the creative industries is falling in real terms, risking a loss of talent across the sector. They noted that the downturn in income has been caused by various factors, including the shift to digital platforms and advancing technology, neither of which are well covered by established mechanisms for copyright remuneration.
The organisations said the government risks undermining its aims for the creative industries, including to increase social mobility through creative careers, if it does not address these issues.
They recommended that the UK government should appoint a freelance commissioner to better understand the issues of freelance workers and introduce a private copying scheme into law to compensate creators and performers, and to protect income from overseas by creating reciprocity between the UK and other countries.
Moreover, they recommended the Department of Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) engage further on how to improve the regulatory landscape and ensure that fair, equitable payment to creators and performers is a priority and that there should be further research into comparative value loss between UK creators and performers and their counterparts overseas.
Richard Combes, deputy c.e.o. of ALCS, said: “Many freelancers have fallen through the gaps in government support and due to the nature of freelance work there is no special consideration made for how tax and benefits relate to such workers, but we cannot afford to lose this creative pool. A freelance commissioner would help government understand and navigate the issues of freelance work, and many of the issues that UK creators face.”