Warner Chappell Chiefs Draw Battle Lines in Upcoming Streaming Royalty Decision Against Spotify, Google, Amazon and Pandora
variety.comJem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs Spotify awkwardly attempts to defend its stance on Joe Rogan — first over the Covid-19 misinformation on his show, and then over his frequent use of the N-word on that same show — the controversies have revived musicians’ longest-standing problem with the platform: The royalty rates it and other streaming platforms pay, which most musicians and many rights-holders feel are far too low.This is particularly true in publishing: In January of 2018 the Copyright Royalty Board ruled to increase songwriter rates for interactive streaming by nearly 50% over the following five years, to 15.1%.
However, in March of 2019, Spotify, Google, Amazon and Pandora then appealed to keep the previous rate of 10.5% — and are gearing up to argue for that rate for the next five-year period (2023-2027) as well. “If left to stand, the CRB’s decision harms both music licensees and copyright owners,” the streaming companies wrote in announcing the appeal. “Accordingly, we are asking the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the decision.”The appeal is ongoing, and the four companies are pushing to keep the rate at 10.5% for the next five-year period.
Guy Moot and Carianne Marshall, co-chairpeople of Warner Chappell Music, one of the largest publishing companies in the world, have written a letter to their writers laying out the situation from their perspective.
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