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Spotify’s Songwriter Bundlegate, One Year Later (Guest Column)

Spotify's bundling controversy over songwriter royalties is revisited one year later in a guest column written by Adam Parness.

When I wrote on this issue back in May 2024, I opined that Spotify’s actions would likely reduce the effective share of its U.S. subscription revenue paid to songwriters and music publishers from the agreed-upon 15.1% to 15.35% in the Phonorecords IV settlement to less than 12%. And finally, I wrote that Spotify was motivated to take publishing royalties out of the pockets of songwriters in order to improve its gross margin and offset the costs of running its new audiobook initiative. As I’ve opined before, I believe this has been a material driver behind Spotify’s bundling initiative that has cost songwriters and music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. mechanical royalties to date.

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