Neutral is the new blind: calling for gender segregated evidence in UK legislative inquiries regarding the music industries

Abstract

© 2021 The Authors. Published by the University of Wolverhampton. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://www.wlv.ac.uk/media/departments/marketing-and-communications/documents/(2021)-6-WLJ-69.pdfIn late 2020, the Government responded to the enormous crisis in the UK music industries, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, by several legislative inquiries, aimed at reviewing the rules regulating the industry, including rules on commercialisation of intellectual property (IP). The aim of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) inquiries is purportedly to improve the fairness and viability of the sector, which was devastated by the pandemic. At the same time, the Covid-19 crisis served as a catalyst to expose the pre-existing inequalities and unfairness in the music industries. This article explores the path of the UK DCMS 2020-21 legislative inquiry into the Economics of Music Streaming as a case study to the current approach in UK regulation of the music industries. Informed by the feminist theory of relational legal feminism and embedded in the broader framework of IP Social Justice theory, the author argues that the current approach to legislative inquiries is incomplete, because it fails to take into account the systemic barriers faced by women (i.e. all who identify as women), including gender minority musicians in the sector. The evidence collected fails to investigate the lived experience of women, to the detriment of the fairness of the overall proposal of future reform