About

Advocacy

The MMF campaigns on behalf of our members to affect change. Our campaign priorities include:

1. Educating the world on the role of the music manager: we help people understand the increasingly important role of the manager and how it has changed in the digital era.  Our Managing Expectations research reports explore this and suggest actions both the MMF, managers and the industry can take to support the development of professional and ethical artist representatives.
2. Streaming – The MMF and CMU’s Dissecting the Digital Dollar project explains through a series of reports and a published book how streaming services are licensed by the music industry and why they are licensed that way. This aims to informs debate around the evolving streaming sector and was used as evidence in Parliament’s enquiry into the Economics of Streaming and subsequent Government work. We actively encourage the industry to be transparent and ask for fair, industry wide equitable payments for artists.
3. AI music – as part of the digital dollar project we have published a Managers (interim) guide to AI exploring the benefits of AI as a tool for managers and also the risk for artists of AI generated music and provided a template letter artists and songwriters can send to their business partners to .outline their position on AI generated music using their works
4. Mental Health – this work supports managers in taking care of their own mental health and that of their artists signposting to professional advice as appropriate. We have recently re-published the Music Manager’s Guide to Mental Health and produced a report on digital burnout.
5. Climate & Sustainability – we are deeply committed to sustainability, working with key organisations to drive impactful change and reduce our environmental footprint. We have signed the declaration with Music Declares Emergency, aligning with their mission to address urgent environmental challenges, and, in recognition of their efforts, we awarded them the Industry Champion Award. We contribute to Earth Percent’s music committee, and recognising the impact of live events and touring, we collaborate with LIVE and LIVE Green to incorporate green clauses into live contracts. At the Artist and Manager Awards, we have partnered with AGF to create a comprehensive report on the event’s carbon impact, enabling us to monitor and minimise our carbon output. We have developed an extensive library of sustainability resources, available to all music managers.
6. Secondary Ticketing – The MMF were founder members of and support the FanFair Alliance, a campaign uniting fans, music businesses and artist against online ticket touting.
7. Collective Licensing – MMF holds those who collect artist and songwriters royalties to account, exploring solutions to the data challenge to encourage innovation and growth.  Read the SongWriters Manifesto
8. Equality & Diversity Campaigns – We work with organisations that celebrate equality and diversity within the music industry, including Love Music Hate Racism and Pride in Music. We hold regular open conversation sessions about racism and other forms of discrimination in the industry through our MMF Unite project and are a strategic partner of PiPA (Parents and Carers in Performing Arts), who campaign to enable and empower parents, carers and employers to achieve sustainable change in attitudes and practices in order to attract, support and retain a more diverse and flexible workforce.