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.

  • GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk
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    6 months ago

    It’s funny like that, isn’t it?

    You catch lightning in a bottle in 5 minutes using Reaper, then spend 100x the time on another song that just vanishes.

    Peaches most popular song was a tape recording off the sound desk in a German bar.

    • Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Yep.

      Another one of my most popular tracks is an atonal hour-and-twenty-minutes of cubic spline curves, granular synthesis, and other assorted noises I programmed in Csound.