Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year With Premium, Duo, Family Plan Changes
www.billboard.com
Spotify will potentially pay songwriters about $150 million less in U.S. mechanical royalties next year after bundling its plans with audiobooks.

When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not this time.

By adding audiobooks into Spotify’s premium tier, the streaming service now claims it qualifies to pay a discounted “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium streams, given Spotify now has to pay licensing for both books and music from the same price tag — which will only be a dollar higher than when music was the only premium offering. Additionally, Spotify will reclassify its duo and family subscription plans as bundles as well.

  • Senseless@feddit.deEnglish
    10·
    24 days ago

    So… is there an alternative to Spotify for music streaming inside the EU that also has a large DB of metal? Ideally a service that gives a bigger share to the artists.

    • baseless_discourse@mander.xyzEnglish
      13·
      24 days ago

      bandcamp is nice. They give much more to artist, and allow you to download flac. So that you can enjoy your music without worrying about your listening habits feeding the machine.

      Our share is 15% on digital items, and 10% on physical goods. Payment processor fees are separate and vary depending on the size of the transaction, but for an average size purchase, amount to an additional 4-7%. The remainder, usually 80-85%, goes directly to the artist or their label, and we pay out daily.

      https://bandcamp.com/fair_trade_music_policy

    • noobnarski@feddit.deEnglish
      5·
      24 days ago

      I dont know if they have all the metal you want, but maybe Youtube Music. One youtuber has stated that he gets about twice as much per view from YT Music than he does from Spotify.

    • Simon Müller@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      3·
      24 days ago

      “Inside the EU” in the sense of “its headquartered in the EU” or in the sense of “available in the EU”?

      either way, I’ve heard lots of people here vouch for Tidal.

      • Senseless@feddit.deEnglish
        1·
        24 days ago

        It’s available in the EU. Found a promising service the other day but it wasn’t available here.

        • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          24 days ago

          Most of them, honestly. Idk where you looked but Tidal, Amazon music, apple music, dezeer or however it’s pronounced, all were available in Spain. I stocked with Tidal because of the Linux client but apparently theybalso pay artists the most so yay.

          As an edit, you mentioned metal, I listen to lots of mainstream metal bands (powerwolf, system of a dawn, dragonforce, sonar arctica, blind guardian…), some other maybe not so well known ones (tyr, alestorm, korpiklaani), and some local ones that are more rock than metal (vendetta, su ta gar, kaotiko, la polla records).

          • Senseless@feddit.deEnglish
            2·
            24 days ago

            Nice, thanks for the answer. They also got a 60 day premium test period for 2 euro, so I’ll test it out.