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.
And 99.99999 percent of musicians lament being humiliated and poor.
Stop releasing your music on Spotify. They depend on you for their reputation as having all the music and will give you nothing in return except ever-broadening inequality and ever-narrowing artistic culture. People have mocked boomers for claiming that music is dying but that’s exactly what is happening.