In the bulls-eye of Amazon and Spotify’s appeal of the Copy Rights Board is an increase to songwriters royalty payments. The CRB increased the percent in royalty payments to songwriters and publishers from 10.5% to 15.1%. While the giants have gotten away with classifying their family packages and memberships under CRB discounts in the past, the National Music Publishers Association now questioning their rationale. For example, Prime members pay $2.99 a month for access to the music platform, and the NMPA wants to know why on what basis did Amazon make this decision?
For the time being, Spotify is complying to the new rules but is appealing the new license. Spotify claims it is fighting new regulations such as performing rights royalties, not the rate increase. Valued in the billions, NMPA boss David Israelite says: “Amazon has concocted a scheme where its Prime Music service is priced so low, songwriters will reap almost no royalties from its platform. This violates the law that protects songwriters work from being bundled with other offerings and essentially used for free.”
– Excerpt from an article for Complete Music Update by Chris Cooke. Find the full article here.
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