The note Paul wrote

From recording sessions for “Egypt Station”, Pauls upcoming album.

The EU-parliament has received a letter from Paul McCartney (who just announced his new tour – beginning with four dates in Canada in September) today.

Here is the letter:

Dear Members of the European Parliament,

I write to urge your support for the mandate on Copyright in the upcoming plenary vote this week.

Music and culture matter. They are our heart and soul. But they don’t just happen: they demand the hard work of so many people. Importantly, music also creates jobs and economic growth and digital innovation across Europe.

Unfortunately, the value gap jeopardizes the music ecosystem. We need an Internet that is fair and sustainable for all. But today some User Upload Content platforms refuse to compensate artists and all music creators fairly for their work, while they exploit it for their own profit.

The value gap is that gulf between the value these platforms derive from music and the value they pay creators.

The proposed Copyright Directive and its Article 13 would address the value gap and help assure a sustainable future for the music ecosystem and its creators, fans and digital music services alike.

Please vote to uphold the mandate on Copyright and Article 13. You hold in your hands the future of music here in Europe.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Sir Paul McCartney

Source: Music Business Worldwide (GB)

The issue at hand is really about YouTube, a website which – despite it’s popularity – hardly creates any revenue at all for composers or artists, because of outdated legislations from the previous century. This has been a hot potato in the record industry for years.

It’s quite possible that this is the reason why, in the past few weeks, The Beatles have uploaded nearly all their albums to their YouTube channel, for free of charge playing – just to illustrate this point.