(EN) Respect the Creators: on the importance of crediting artists
Spreekuur: Respect the Creators, 2 April 2025 in GIFTSHOP
For last April’s edition of Spreekuur, Ghent-based artist Dicle Baykal invited Frank Nitzinsky, one of the prominent figures in the electronic music industry and ‘Respect the Creators’-initiator. We got to dive into why more transparency and ethics concerning artist credits is needed, and what we can do to change in order to give producers the credits they deserve. Additionally, Frank and Dicle provided us with some info on the importance of giving proper credits, on how you can earn money as a producing artist, and how to credit others as a DJ or organiser.
DJ’s, let’s come clean: most probably the biggest part of your sets exist of other people’s music. Reportedly only about 3%* of DJ sets is self produced music. This in itself is actually not a problem at all, if only producers would get the credits and the money they deserve for putting so much work into their art.
But many DJs do not credit the music they play: tracklists are often kept secret, artists are not credited in social media posts, and for some it’s even a game not to share track IDs – meaning the producer can never break through, sell more music or get booked, because we don’t know who they are. Besides, it is actually illegal not to credit artists when posting music to a social media platform. This is a so-called moral right, recognised in 178 of the 193 United Nations member states.
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The ‘moral right of attribution’, if followed to the letter, would mean that every social media post featuring music would have to feature the name of the artist prominently next to where the art is presented. This would mean credit directly under the video, and not in the comments or as a response to someone asking for an ID.
The other key moral right awarded to artists is the ‘right of protection against false attribution’. The name most prominently featured next to the music is that of the DJ, so people could absolutely be forgiven when they think that the music in the social media post is an original work by the DJ. It very likely isn’t because if it was they would definitely tell you.
source: Respect The Creators
To fight for artists’ fundamental right to be credited, Frank initiated the campaign ‘Respect the Creators’, with the help of AFEM and Dutch organization BAM! Popauteurs. As he said during Spreekuur: “Not crediting artists is disadvantageous for a big part of the music industry: agencies, producers, labels…” In other art fields not crediting a maker is unthinkable: “Imagine a curator hanging the Mona Lisa in a museum, but not saying it’s the Mona Lisa by Da Vinci”, Frank explains.
Every actor in the music industry can contribute to making a change in this. Below you’ll find some guidance for producers, DJs and organisers in what you can do for a more honest ecosystem within the music industry.
For DJs
As a DJ you can change the status quo by giving artists the recognition they deserve.
Even if you’ve paid for the song, once you use it for promotional purposes (e.g. putting a mix on SoundCloud or Mixcloud, posting a video on social media) you have to credit the artist.
When you post mixes online, always include a tracklist.
Send promoters/organisers your playlist after a gig, so they can register it at SABAM.
For organisers
Organisers are very influential in this too, especially if they do big events and have lots of followers online. As a promoter, you can do the following:
Whenever you post content with music (e.g. DJs playing music at your event, event promotion, aftermovies), make sure to credit the artist.
Register your event with SABAM/UNISONO (which is mandatory anyway) and ask DJs to send their playlists afterwards. This way, it is not the big artists who run away with all the money, but small artists will get their share too.
Ask artists who played at your event to credit the artists in social media posts from those events, or add tracklists if they upload a recording from the event.
For producing artists
A big part of this issue lies with DJs and promoters, but… if you’re not registered as a producer, you can’t make money from your music. Frank and Dicle kindly wrote us summaries on how to register your music as an artist, and how to make direct income as an artist.
*Music rights and redistribution company Aslice ran a preliminary analysis of playlists from ticketed events submitted by over 1000 DJs which indicate that on average only 3% of a DJ’s set is music that they’ve produced themselves. This sample of data, although incomplete, is one of the few sources of substance on the topic and clearly dispels this myth with great force