URGENT talks between Britain’s songwriters and leading music labels over royalties on digital music are close to collapse, the head of the songwriters’ lobby group said yesterday.

Adam Singer, chief executive of the Music Alliance (MA), said that the talks had been unsuccessful and that an agreement was unlikely to be reached before a tribunal hearing in the autumn.

Mr Singer, the former chief executive of Telewest, the cable company, said that he had held several private meetings with the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the body that represents the big music labels, including EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner Music. “I think most people assumed that a deal would be thrashed out before a formal tribunal proceeding began,” he said.

“As far as we can see, that is now unlikely. But talks are still ongoing, as both sides would like to avoid going to court. We are determined to see that the creatives get their fair share of the cake in a digital age.”

A BPI spokesman said: “The talks remain open as far as we are concerned.”

Last year Britain’s songwriters and composers bitterly criticised top record labels, which are accused of trying to more than halve the royalties that songwriters can claim on each 79p digital download to about 2.5p, from 6p.

The MA, which represents about 44,000 songwriters and composers through the Performing Rights Society and the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society, is demanding an increase in royalties to between 7p and 9p per download.

The MA is also challenging the record companies to disclose how much money they are making from the online music market. The lobby group argues that selling music online is cheaper for the record companies than producing a CD and distributing it to record stores, so while costs fall and margins soar for online music, those who provide the music see very little of this benefit.

However, some music industry sources insisted that this market has been created by the record industry and technology companies, not by composers.

Some also say that the battle against piracy has been fought by the record industry and that it still faces fixed costs for producing CDs while also incurring costs in digitising music for sale online and promoting it.

FAST FORWARD

• The digital music market is growing at a rapid rate. The legal market for online music, which barely existed in the UK in 2003, grew to 5.7 million permanent downloads sold by the end of 2004. By the first half of 2005, that figure had topped ten million

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive