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JPL

@joloew

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JPL - Frontman of @toramusic
Johan Pele Loewenthal (just call me Jo)
Producer • Engineer • Songwriter
Currently exposing the global royalty system

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Listen carefully, this affects every artist, songwriter, producer, performer, engineer or rights owner in music on the planet.

Most PRO’s or CMO’s don’t actually share raw data with each other internationally, meaning they actually cannot verify wha the pay us.

However, using Privacy Laws like GDPR article 15 you can request it directly from each source PRO and they have to give it to you within 30 days in most territories. by @joloew

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7 months ago

“Quite possibly fraud and/or incompetence leading to underpayment of royalties.”

A government regulator wrote that. About the system that pays Australian songwriters. About the same system they are right now deciding whether to renew for another five years.

I submitted evidence to the ACCC documenting systemic failures across the global royalty collection network.

They accidentally sent me an internal email responding to it.

They asked me to delete it. I preserved it — this is a matter of public interest.

Their own assessment: potential fraud and incompetence.

Their own conclusion: doesn’t change the outcome.

They never asked to see my source evidence. Not once.

So I filed a federal parliamentary petition — EN9803 — calling for a public inquiry before this decision is made.

I’ve contacted dozens of MPs and Senators this week asking them to sponsor it. We need ONE sponsor for it to open for public signatures.

If you’re Australian — find your local MP at aph.gov.au and ask them to sponsor petition EN9803. Takes two minutes. This is how we force a public review before it’s too late.

If you’re not Australian — tell your Aussie mates.
Now is the time to activate. Share this. Make noise. Force the review.
EN9803 🇦🇺

#MusicIndustryExposed #APRA #ACCC #Songwriters #EN9803 by @joloew

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6 months ago

❤️‍🩹 what would we do without music…

Sail Away - David Grey

Should I drop a full version? by @joloew

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9 hours ago

Today we took a big stride forward for transparency in the music industry.

Songwriters in Australia just did something their royalty society hasn’t seen in at least a decade.

This week a group of us used a rule most members don’t know exists:

Section 249N(1)(b) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) — “at least 100 members who are entitled to vote at a general meeting” may give notice of a resolution they propose to move.

What we asked for:
— The data behind every payment. Free, on request.
— Election results in numbers, not just names.

We got well over 100 signatures and lodged it today. The next step is the vote which is on 24 November at the next annual general meeting for APRA.

As many of you know, every songwriter’s income runs through a collecting society — APRA in Australia, PRS in the UK, ASCAP (and others) in the US, GEMA, SACEM, BUMA etc in Europe.

They collect billions and pay it out based on royalty data members can’t see, despite the fact these societies are owned by the songwriters and publishers who are their members.

Wherever you are, your society almost certainly has a rule like Australia does, we can update our system ourselves using these rules. Songwriters everywhere are waking up, now it’s time to update the entire system democratically…

EXERCISE YOUR RIGHTS 🤍 by @joloew

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a month ago

MUSIC CREATORS, THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW!

We need 100 signatures in the next 7 days to bring these resolutions to a vote at the next APRA Annual General Meeting. (Access to raw royalty data & voting transparency).

On Friday the ACCC re-authorised APRA’s ‘virtual monopoly’ on public performance rights in Australia until October 2031. It found the public benefit outweighed the harm.

The final determination cited my name 40 times and it found that:

APRA’s statements “provide only aggregated payments details,” making it “difficult for creator members to discover or challenge missing royalties” (4.51), and APRA “faces little financial incentive to improve this situation” (4.51).

Credit where it’s due: from October, every overseas payment must name the source society and the fees taken at both ends (Condition 4.2.2). That’s real.

But on the raw data, (what was played, where, at what rate) the regulator said it’s “a matter for the APRA members acting through the APRA board to decide” (4.117).

So now we need to push together, democratically.

Under s 249N of the Corporations Act, 100 members can put resolutions on the AGM agenda and APRA must circulate them to every member.

Two members’ resolutions for the AGM on 24 November:

RESOLUTION 1: Raw data access — the data behind every payment, free, on request.

RESOLUTION 2: Election results in numbers — every election since 2020 and every one to come.

If you agree with this then go and sign the letter at the link in bio.

Like I said we need 100 signatures (from APRA members) by Monday 21 September.

Spread the word. by @joloew

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a month ago

Outrageous. The ACCC continues to refuse every single FOI request I submit, and their reasons keep changing…

Months ago, an ACCC officer accidentally sent me an internal email stating ‘quite possibly a lot of fraud and/or incompetence leading to underpayment of royalties.’

I filed an FOI request for it. Here’s what’s happened since:

. First: “over 2,000 hours to process.” I narrowed the request.

. Then: “57 hours — still too much.” I narrowed it again.

. Then: “the documents relate to an application for authorisation currently being considered by the ACCC” I narrowed it a third time, down to just the email itself and its immediate context.

. Then just before their 30 day deadline they stated ‘The ACCC has decided to extend the statutory time limit for processing your request from 30 days to 60 days to enable consultation with relevant third parties as to whether they object to their information being provided to you. This is allowed under s.15(6) of the Act.’

. This week, 60 days later: 42 documents identified. All 42 refused, citing legal privilege, harm to their own operations, and “irrelevant material.”

Not one of those 42 refusals is about protecting anyone else’s information, so their extension based on third parties is now proven to be irelevent in their own reasoning.

This is a regulator, funded by $400 million a year of Australian taxpayer money, refusing access to its own internal record of the very issue it was asked to explain, while it decides whether to hand a royalty monopoly another five years.

My submissions are now part of the official record before the Commissioners. That part of the story is moving. This part, access to the ACCC’s own documents, is being blocked, again.

I’m taking this refusal to the Australian Information Commissioner. This isn’t over.

What are they protecting, if not the public? by @joloew

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2 months ago

In almost every democracy on earth, we decided a long time ago that your vote shouldn’t depend on your bank balance.

Inside @apraamcos music monopoly, it’s written into their constitution that it does.

Should your vote depend on how much you earn?

My latest Substack goes into more detail…let me know your thoughts… by @joloew

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3 months ago

The system is broken in music - @joloew has been publicly taking on major labels, and part 1 of his chat on IHS is live wherever you get podcasts #musicpodcast #musicindustry #artistrights by @joloew

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4 months ago

In this music monopoly, the more money you make, the more votes you get.

The ACCC has just published my full 40-page evidence summary on the public record — months of digging into how the royalty system really operates. It’s no longer my word against theirs.

The part that matters most:

Votes are weighted by earnings — one vote, plus one more for every $2,500 you’re paid (Article 41). Major publishers dwarf any individual writer.

Earn nothing two years running and you lose your vote entirely (Article 8) — restored only when APRA pays you again, which you can’t force.

And because APRA can’t independently verify overseas royalties, members underpaid through those errors — or rounded down to $0 by earning thresholds — can be the ones who lose their vote.

So the writers underpaid by the system are the ones stripped of the power to change it. My ask is simple: one member, one vote.

What do you guys think, should your vote depend on how much you earn? by @joloew

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4 months ago

They won’t show us how the monopoly decision is being made — because the monopoly decision is being made.

That’s their actual reason.

I asked Australia’s competition regulator, the ACCC, for its communications with APRA AMCOS under the Freedom of Information Act.

They refused. I narrowed it to 57 hours of work. They refused again.

Their reason this time, in writing: the documents relate to the authorisation decision they’re currently considering.

So the regulator’s emails with the monopoly are being kept from the public — precisely because they’re mid-way through deciding whether to renew that monopoly for five years.

But that’s the entire point.

The moment scrutiny matters most is the exact moment they’ve chosen to withhold it.

Over $400 million a year in public money goes to ACCC.
A decision touching 128,000+ members and every café, bar, radio station and venue in the country.

And a regulator that won’t show its working — while it’s working.

If there’s nothing in those emails, why is “the decision is happening now” a reason to keep them from the people it affects?

Why is the media silent on this still?

It’s time too get loud and apply public pressure, this is too important to let slide. by @joloew

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4 months ago

We pay them $400 million a year. Have they forgotten who they work for?

We fund Australia’s competition regulator with our taxes — the ACCC — with over $400 million a year. Up around 14% on last year. 1,700+ staff. They answer to the public. To us.

So I used the public’s own tool: I filed a Freedom of Information request for the communications between the ACCC and APRA AMCOS.

They refused. Their reason, in plain terms? It would take too much effort.

Too much effort. From the agency we pay nine figures a year to run.

But here’s the part that should make us all sit up:

They’re refusing to release these communications at the exact moment they’re deciding whether to grant APRA AMCOS another FIVE YEARS of monopoly power.

The emails between the regulator and the monopoly which are directly relevant to this decision. Kept from the public. Right as the monopoly is about to be waved through for another half a decade.

Makes you wonder what’s in them…

And this isn’t niche. This decision sets the terms for 128,000+ songwriters in AU & NZ, composers and publishers — and every café, bar, gym, radio station, ad and film that’s ever played a song…and most international songwriters are also affected as their music is played in Aus too.

So let’s ask the question they’d rather we didn’t: what’s in those emails — and why are the people paying for it the ones being kept in the dark?

They work for us. Let’s remind them. by @joloew

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4 months ago

AI trained on my entire catalog without my consent and everyone expects me to be furious.

I’m not, at least not the way you’d think.

Yes, it stings that these companies profit off our music.

But every artist builds on the ones who came before, and none of us credit or pay them either. We’d be lying if we didn’t admit that to ourselves.

The issue is not solely the training itself, it’s more so the output.

Copy someone until you can’t tell the difference, and that’s theft, whether a human or a machine does it.

Here’s the part that gets me though: the same organisations screaming “theft” about AI are sitting on the exact thing they accuse AI of — the same total lack of transparency.

Very interested to hear everyone else’s perspective on this, my opinion is movable, I’m still working this one out and I am by no means defending the AI companies who profit from us, but I do think there is nuance and our attention on this matter needs to be directed where it counts, so we get a constructive outcome, not just noise.

Let’s discuss it! by @joloew

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4 months ago