Just hours after Spotify announced its first annual net profit everThe National Music Publishers’ Association has launched an ongoing mutual initiative against the streaming giant for unlicensed use of music in podcast on its platform.
As of today (February 4), messages will be sent to remove thousands of unlicensed uses of NMPA members’ work, according to the announcement. Over 2,500 infringements are included in the first removal notification. The move complies with the trading group’s legal action by 2024 against Spotify over its Controversial audio books’ music “Bundling” Deal, which significantly lowered the royalties paid to the holders of music rights.
In May last year, NMPA sent a termination letter to the platform and stated that “Spotify thus seems to be involved in direct intrusion by hosting unlicensed musical works in its texts, videos and podcasts …” The letter required that “unlicensed texts, music videos And podcast is removed from the platform or Spotify will face copyright responsibility for the continued use of these works. ”
NMPA’s President and CEO David Israelite said: “Spotify has thousands of unlicensed songs in their podcast, which it has done nothing to fix. This removal measure comes as no surprise, we have warned about this issue for some time.
“Podcasts is a growing source of income for songwriters and publishers, and it is important that podcast provides legally produced entertainment. This is not difficult to do, and Spotify knows, and has known how to solve this problem for its users. We hope that podcast hosts will stand up for their co -creators and demand that Spotify do better. “
Takedown program contains 19 NMPA member publishers including Abkco, Anthem Entertainment, Big Machine Music, BMG, Concord Music Publishing, Downtown Music Publishing, Hipgnosis Songs Group, Kobalt, Mayimba Music, Peermusic, Primary Wave Music ., Sony Music Publishing, Spirit Music Group, Ultra Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music and Wixen Music Publishing.
In June last year, NMPA submitted a legal complaint against Spotify over its Music -Audibooks “Bundling” agreementWhich meant a lower mechanical royalty for songwriters. Last month, Universal Music announced a new, multi -year agreement for recorded music and music publishing “focused on growth, innovation and progress of artists and songwriters’ success.” It also marks the first direct license between Spotify and a large publisher for several years. NMPA offered gently praise from the deal and said “” the announcement about a deal between Spotify and UMPG bols good for the industry. “
