Photo Credit: Fair Play
A new independent UK initiative has released its first report on how effectively club royalties are distributed in the digital music era.
A six-month audit published by Fair Play, a new independent initiative aiming for transparency and accountability in electronic music royalties, provides some much-needed insight into how UK royalties are collected and distributed, and how effectively so.
The answer? Not very. It turns out that only 36% of club performance royalties reach the correct creators, with an estimated £5.7 million ($7.4 million) misallocated every year.
Developed by a multidisciplinary team that includes members of the former Aslice project and research firm Audience Strategies—the analysts and experts behind the NTIA reports—the Fair Play audit combines a detailed analysis of the UK’s performance rights system with a global survey of 338 industry stakeholders across 45 countries.
Among the audit’s key findings, less than 7% of 851 total UK nightclubs use Music Recognition Technology (MRT), or approximately 60 venues across the UK. 88% of venues rely on analog distribution (radio playlists), which achieves only an estimated 50% attribution accuracy. Moreover, only 5% of DJ performances are voluntarily submitted to PRS, and only 28.4% of a club’s annual PRS/PPL licensing fee reaches the correct creators, while 21% goes to administrators. Over 50% is misllocated.
On a global scale, 46% of electronic music creators are not registered with collection societies, while 58% of venue operators report being unfamiliar with MRT. 81% of producers earn 10% or less of their annual income from performance royalties, while 82% rate their local performance rights systems as inadequate or worse. 42% of DJs reported submitting playlists to PROs.
The initiative points out that in instances were proprietary numbers were not available due to NDA, the audit used published tariffs, policy documents, venue and vendor testimony, public statements, and “transparent mathematical assumptions,” all of which are documented in the full report.
While electronic music is a key UK cultural export, generating £2.4 billion ($3.15 billion) through clubs, festivals, and touring in 2024, there has been no independent assessment of whether the money is flowing correctly to its creators. The Fair Play framework is designed to evaluate royalty accuracy across four stages: performance capture, attribution, creator registration, and payout—to identify points where value is lost and where improvements can be made.
To that end, Fair Play recommends broadening MRT coverage to improve data capture, accelerating creator registration, and reforming weighting rules toward verified data sources. The initiative points out that in instances were proprietary numbers were not available due to NDA, the audit used published tariffs, policy documents, venue and vendor testimony, public statements, and “transparent mathematical assumptions,” all of which are documented in the full report.
