From 30 January until 5 February, everything revolves around Belgian music. The Week of Belgian Music, an initiative of VI.BE, VRT, Conseil de la Musique, Court-Circuit and RTBF, celebrates local music. Time to list what PlayRight meant for Belgian musicians last year.

In 2022, we distributed 10.4 million euros of music rights that were collected in Belgium. Almost 1.95 million euros was distributed to musicians of Belgian nationality, with the remaining 8.45 million euros going to foreign artists.

Musicians are the most represented in our distributions: last year, 75 per cent of the cake we distributed went to music rights.

Those music rights remunerations come from equitable remuneration, private copying, lending rights and teaching and scientific research remuneration. PlayRight distributes the remuneration based on radio broadcasters’ playlists and Ultratop sales lists.

Remuneration for online use of music

You may have already noticed, but an important form of exploitation is not included in the distribution: music available on platforms like Spotify, Deezer or YouTube.

Last year, PlayRight did intense lobbying to ensure that musicians are legally entitled to remuneration for their music exploited on such platforms. That paid off: the Chamber passed the law (with a large majority!).

Read more about the law

205,000 euros of financial support

Apart from distributing neighbouring rights and lobbying in favour of performers, PlayRight also has a socio-cultural and educational branch: PlayRight+. Through this, we provide financial support to projects and organisations that benefit the entire community of Belgian performers.

Last year, PlayRight+ supported 23 music projects such as festivals and award ceremonies, granting them 95,000 euros in total. Organisations such as De Muziekgilde and FACIR, which represent the interests of Dutch- and French-speaking musicians respectively, could count on our support. PlayRight+ supported those organisations with a total of 50,000 euros.

PlayRight+ was also one of the founders (together with Sabam For Culture, De Muziekgilde, FACIR with support of the King Baudouin Foundation) of Fund Belgian Music, an emergency fund for the Belgian music sector created during the corona crisis. We supported 90 music projects, accounting for 60,000 euros of financial support.

PlayRight and PlayRight+ will continue their activities in 2023 to support its 20,330 members from both the music and audiovisual sectors.