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Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music firm, and Spotify, the world’s largest paid streaming service, introduced on Sunday new, multi-year agreements for recorded music and music publishing “focused on growth, innovation and the advancement of artists’ and songwriters’ success,” in accordance with the joint announcement. It additionally marks the primary direct license between Spotify and a serious writer in a number of years.
While phrases of the deal weren’t introduced, sources affirm to Variety that the deal improves at the least among the fee construction of Spotify’s controversial music-audiobooks “bundling” deal, introduced final 12 months, which meant a decrease mechanical royalty for songwriters and was so roundly condemned by rights-holders that the National Music Publishers Association filed a authorized grievance in opposition to the streaming large in June.
Sources inform Variety that though the brand new deal doesn’t utterly ameliorate that fee discount, it does enhance it; contemplating that Universal Music Publishing CEO Jody Gerson was one of many loudest voices criticizing the bundle, the phrases should symbolize at the least some important enhancements.
A Spotify rep mentioned in a separate assertion, “Spotify maintains its bundle, but with this direct deal [with UMPG], it has evolved to account for broader rights, including a different economic treatment for music and non-music content.” The obnoxious Sunday-afternoon timing of the announcement was as a result of information leaking to Music Business Worldwide, which was first to report the deal.
While a lot of the wording within the announcement is in bland generalities, it does be aware that “Artists, songwriters and consumers will benefit from new and evolving offers, new paid subscription tiers, bundling of music and non-music content, and a richer audio and visual content catalog,” including that “the collaboration between these two companies will position the industry for continued subscriber growth and retention.” It concludes by noting that “The new agreements also renew the companies’ commitment to artist-centric principles, ensuring that artists continue to be properly rewarded for the share of audience engagement that they drive and that their streaming royalties remain protected through the platform’s application of its fraud detection and enforcement systems.”
Lucian Grainge, Chairman & CEO, Universal Music Group mentioned, “When we first presented our vision for the next stage in the evolution of music subscription several months ago — Streaming 2.0 — this is precisely the kind of partnership development we envisioned. This agreement furthers and broadens the collaboration with Spotify for both our labels and music publisher, advancing artist-centric principles to drive greater monetization for artists and songwriters, as well as enhancing product offerings for consumers.”
Daniel Ek, Spotify’s Founder and CEO, mentioned, “For nearly two decades, Spotify has made good on its commitment to return the music industry to growth, ensuring that we deliver record payouts to the benefit of artists and songwriters each new year. This partnership ensures we can continue to deliver on this promise by embracing the certainty that constant innovation is key to making paid music subscriptions even more attractive to a broader audience of fans around the world.”
A rep for NMPA mentioned the group has no remark.