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.

    • CrisEnglish
      1•8 months ago

      What is radio free fedi?

      • @[email protected]English
        2•8 months ago

        Radio Free Fedi or @RFF is a community internet radio station which plays music from artists on the fediverse. From their own website at https://radiofreefedi.net/ :

        radio free fedi is consent, agency and artist celebrating community radio from the fediverse. We actively and openly present contributing artists’ information with the hopes that you will drop-in, discover, and then LEAVE? That’s right, RFF has no interest to be an end-point for hyper focused consumption. We also do not have the resource to provide infinite custom streams and we love the community to not do soulless algorithms. We want to foster organic discovery and discourse. We want to generate support for independent artists on the platforms and methods of their choice, no judgement. Support independent and fedi artists!

        I’ve discovered loads of awesome and unique music on it :)

        • CrisEnglish
          1•8 months ago

          Dude that sounds rad! Thanks for mentioning them and explaining what they are, I’ll have to check that out!

          • @[email protected]English
            2•8 months ago

            It fuckin is rad! I love it so much! I mostly listen to the Comfy channel but I’ve found some wicked stuff on the main channel too. There’s usually a link so you can find them on the fedi or buy a track too. Maybe it’s because of the fediverse/freedom/generosity ethic and I’m in a biased bubble but everything on there is just so genuinely good, even if it’s not normally my taste. I’ve had a bunch of really sweet evenings listening to it and my gf always asks what the track is when I put it on. I kinda want to volunteer for the channel tbh. Check it out and feel free to DM me with what you think! I’m spending more time on Lemmy than Mastodon these days, so I’m not seeing people mention them via hashtags as much. RFF and Pixelfed are basically the best thing about the internet right now imo :)