Published
Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 16:10
- The numbers are "the lowest royalty rates in history," according to The National Music Publishers' Association.
Tensions between streaming platforms and music publishers are growing increasingly heated in the US.
Every five years, a panel of judges known as the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) determine the royalty fees that streaming companies should pay artists and music publishers. For the upcoming 2023-2027 period, Spotify, Amazon, Apple, Pandora, Google and other streaming platform owners recently submitted their suggested rates to the CRB, prompting backlash from trade group The National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA).
Though the numbers haven't been publicly revealed, in an interview with Music Business Worldwide, NMPA President and CEO David Israelite described the figures as "the lowest royalty rates in history."
"Not only do they propose rolling back rates and terms to erase all gains over the last 15 years, but they actually are proposing a structure worse than at any point in the history of interactive streaming," he continued.
The NMPA itself has proposed a greater formula of four parts in determining songwriter royalties, according to Music Business Worldwide:
20% percentage of revenue; or
40% of what record labels and artists receive; or
$1.50 per subscriber; or
$0.0015 per play
The developments come amid prolonged uncertainty over rates for the 2018-2022 period. In 2018, the CRB approved a 44 percent rate increase, a ruling that was successfully appealed by Spotify, Google, Amazon and Pandora on the grounds that the CRB provided "insufficient notice and reasoning" when setting royalty rates.
Read Music Business Worldwide's full story for more details.