Tag Archives: royalties

Spotify, Google, Pandora, Amazon Go to U.S. Appeals Court to Overturn Royalty Increase (EXCLUSIVE)

Spotify, Google, Pandora and Amazon.com have teamed up to appeal a controversial ruling by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board that, if it goes through, would increase payouts to songwriters by 44%, Variety has learned. – Jem Aswad & Chris Willman, Variety » https://ift.tt/2H4d99f

SAG-AFTRA Hit With Class Action Suit Over Streaming Music Service Fees

According to the suit, SAG-AFTRA and [The American Federation of Musicians] began collecting a 3% service fee from the fund in 2013. The suit alleges that the unions have collected more than $5 million in fees in exchange for providing data and for administering the fund, thereby reducing the pool of money available to performers. The suit also alleges that the interests of the fund are skewed towards the unions. – Gene Maddaus, Variety https://ift.tt/2tmERFS

Spotify Offers Managers, Artists Advances to License Music Directly to Its Streaming Service: Exclusive

Under the terms of some of the deals, management firms can receive several hundred thousand dollars as an advance fee for agreeing to license a certain number of tracks by their independent acts directly to Spotify. Then, in at least some cases, the managers and acts stand to earn 50 percent of the revenue per stream on those songs on Spotify. That’s slightly less than the 54 percent of revenue the major record labels in the U.S. get per stream, on average, according to Billboard’s calculations, but major-label artists and their managers typically receive only 20 percent to 50 percent of the label’s share, depending on an act’s individual royalty rates, and don’t usually get to own their master recordings. – Hannah Karp, Billboard https://ift.tt/2sHa9XN

Copyright Royalty Board Boosts Songwriters’ Streaming Pay Nearly 50%

The Copyright Royalty Board has ruled to increase songwriter rates for interactive streaming by nearly 50% over the next five years, in a ruling issued early Saturday. Equally important, the CRB simplified and strengthened the manner in which songwriters are paid mechanical royalties, modifying terms in a way that offers a foothold in the free-market. – Paula Parisi, Variety http://ift.tt/2GoPInC

YouTube music head says company pays higher royalties than Spotify

Lyor Cohen rebuts the common belief that YouTube pays less than Spotify or Pandora, saying that his service pays more than $3 per thousand streams in the US, “more than other ad supported services.” Cohen, who has been trying to patch things up between YouTube and the music industry, believes that songwriters and artists need to know what they’re making. – Rob LeFebvre, Engadget http://ift.tt/2uOXHrZ

The Star Wars Video That Baffled YouTube’s Copyright Cops | Backchannel

Fans of the YouTube channel Auralnauts, which posted the doctored Star Wars scene in 2014 as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the emotional power of Williams’ score, loved it for that weirdness. But another set of viewers—the holders of the rights to the movie’s soundtrack—tuned in to these sounds of silence and heard something else: the ka-ching of a cash register. – Jermey Hsu, WIRED via Ars Technica http://ift.tt/2w5sWfh

What Do The Major Streaming Services Pay Per Stream?

Coming in a somewhat surprising first place is Napster, which was the brand that helped usher in the era of people stealing music en masse online. The company merged with streaming platform Rhapsody a few years back, and eventually, the latter name was discarded in favor of Napster, which was already a legitimate streaming platform in some territories around the world by that time. That company pays $0.0167 per play, and if that sounds like it’s too small to matter to anyone, the numbers only drop from there. – Hugh McIntyre, Forbes http://ift.tt/2u1rY1t
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