Our submission to the Digital Markets, Competitions and Consumer Bill

We largely welcome the Bill as we believe it provides an avenue for creators to be paid more fairly by big streaming platforms.

Digital markets have profoundly changed the way in which creators’ works are used, making large profits for the platforms, while paying the creators a disproportionately low share of the revenues. The DMCC Bill in its current form gives creators the legal framework to claim rightful payment for use of their work.

The Digital Markets, Competitions and Consumer Bill (DMCC) explained

At the end of April, the Government introduced the DMCC bill to Parliament with three different aims in mind:

• To give the Digital Markets Unit (DMU) and the Competitions Market Authority (CMA) powers to enforce new regulations for large tech companies with “Strategic Market Status”
• To establish pro-competition laws to curtail the dominance of a handful of big technology platforms
• To bring in greater consumer protection laws

New regulations grant individuals and smaller organisations a legal framework to use when engaging in discussions around platforms power in digital markets.

The new ‘Strategic Market Status’ designation for large tech companies includes legally enforceable conduct requirements, and so for the first time provides these digital platforms with a legal incentive to enter into voluntary discussions around rightful remuneration for the works used on their platforms.

Next steps

The Public Bill Committee has  finished reviewing and amending the text, and it will now be passed onto the House of Lords to vote on. A date has yet to be set but ALCS will be monitoring the Bill for progress and will provide any relevant updates.

The full submission can be found here.

If you have any questions, please email advocacy@alcs.co.uk