The European Parliament have just approved a number of changes that seek to increase artist’s standing on streaming services.

This week, the European Parliament voted up changes to the music streaming industry with a resounding majority. With 532 votes to 61 (and 33 abstentions) they hope “to ensure the music streaming sector is fair and sustainable, and to promote cultural diversity”.

One of the leading goals will be to revise “pre-digital royalty rates” to redefine how streaming royalties remunerate artists. They also want to put an end to “payola schemes that force authors to accept lower or no revenues in exchange for greater visibility”.

To push forward European culture, they will ask that European musical works are “visible, prominent, and accessible”. This is a strange request that may have a negative affect on algorithmic based recommendations which cater to users’ tastes rather than location.

Speaking of algorithms, the EU will ask digital service providers to “make their algorithms and recommendation tools transparent” including a clear, visible label for any tracks that have been created using AI.

The European Authors’ Societies, GESAC wrote that this is “a strong signal of recognition and understanding of the needs of creators”. However, this vote does not mean that legislation is being put into place. It will, however, help to start putting these ideas in motion within the EU.

It has been welcomed regardless by large parts of the music industry in Europe. Spanish politician and member of the elected parliament for Europe, Ibán García del Blanco wrote: “The parliament is giving voice to the concerns of European creators, who are at the heart of the music streaming market.

“Cultural diversity and ensuring that authors are credited and fairly paid has always been our priority; this is why we ask for rules that ensure algorithms and recommendation tools used by music streaming services are transparent as well as in their use of AI tools, placing European authors at the centre.”