PIONEER LAUNCH KUVO 'GET PLAYED GET PAID' SERVICE

AFEM (The Association for Electronic Music) launched a new campaign at the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) convention today that aims to direct the estimated £100 million a year in lost performance royalties to the rightful writers, producers and artists in electronic music.

The campaign, which is being called 'Get Played Get Paid', plans to work with equipment manufacturer Pioneer DJ in order to supply royalties to the correct artists when their music is played at a club, festival or on the radio.

“The problem is that the money collected does not necessarily go to the right people,” said AFEM CEO Mark Lawrence. 'Get Played Get Paid' is the first of a series of new initiatives expected from AFEM in the coming months. 

“Part of the problem is down to writers, artists and tracks not being registered at collection societies so the organisations don't know who to pay,” Lawrence continued.

AFEM hopes that new technology developed by Pioneer will help them solve this problem. Pioneer is offering their 'KUVO box' to clubs. This box is able to recognize which tracks are being played and will send the information to collection societies over the KUVO's cloud system.

200 KUVO boxes have already been installed, including in places like Space Ibiza and Ministry Of Sound.

“This is an innovative and incredibly progressive move by Pioneer which will potentially benefit thousands of electronic music creators, and ensure they get the money which is owing to them,” stated AFEM co-founder Ben Turner.

With technology in place to record which tracks are actually being played, AFEM and Pioneer hope that artists can finally receive the royalties they deserve. 

Words: Josh Molskness