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.

  • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    This works with my listening habits, which are something like “I have like one new (-to me) album on heavy rotation every couple of weeks”

    I actually kinda do the same thing, so you’ve got me thinking I should start just buying albums. Build a Jellyfin server so I can still stream music, and just not deal with subscriptions.

    And actually, most of the time I buy records that come with digital downloads anyway. Time to rethink my Tidal subscription.