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Artists donate royalties to Earth

Brian Eno’s climate change charity EarthPercent has launched a scheme where artists can make the environment the beneficiary of their royalties.

The Earth as Your Co-Writer scheme enables artists to list the Earth as a songwriter and legal beneficiary of royalties, with the money going directly to environmental organisations.

EarthPercent is inviting acts to donate 1% of one new composition – or more should they wish – with funds raised going to the charity’s grant-giving fund.

More than 23 artists including Aurora, Anna Calvi, Jacob Collier, Dave and Stormzy producer Fraser T Smith, Mount Kimbie and Eno himself have signed up for the cause.

Some, including Big Thief, have pledged to donate 1% of touring revenue to the charity to help offset their own environmental impact.

Big Thief have pledged to donate 1% of touring revenue to the charity to help offset their own environmental impact

“The Earth as Your Co-writer is a beautiful idea in which we harness the poetic construct of The Earth as a co-writer of music and direct some of the income from our compositions towards tackling the climate emergency,” says Eno who came up with the concept, and has listed the Earth as a songwriter on new track A Thought.

“EarthPercent provides an easy way for the music industry to make a difference by asking artists to commit a small percentage of their songwriting revenue. All musicians are inspired by the precious planet we live on, so it’s fitting that we are now able to name The Earth as our co-writer.”

The initiative has been created over an 18-month period by a cross-industry advisory group working with EarthPercent.

One of the advisors, Grammy Award-winning record producer Kevin Bacon, reached an agreement with Unison, an accredited rights management entity, who will be collecting the income for the Earth.

During the pilot phase, the charity will be working with the UK Music Publishing Association on how to build the scheme so it can be rolled out on a bigger scale in the future.

 


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