Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year With Premium, Duo, Family Plan Changes
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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.

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

    (Note I’m not super familiar with Tidal)

    I had a look earlier in the year and I believe Napster pay very decent artist royalties and offer a Spotify migration service. I will be moving to them after this.

    • @[email protected]English
      6•2 months ago

      This is why I went for Tidal:

      Tidal takes a look back at a HiFi Plus subscriber’s top streamed artist at the end of every month, and then allocates the direct payment to that listener’s most played artist. Qualified artists who enroll in the Direct Artist Payout program will be able to collect the payouts allocated to them on a monthly basis.

      But they recently changed their pricing and I’m no longer paying 20 so I’m not sure if they still do that or not. I have heard good things about napster too.