Spotify will pay $43.4 million to a group of songwriters who sued the streaming service for copyright infringement. Class action suits were filed in federal court by Cracker and Camper van Beethoven frontman David Lowery and singer-songwriter Melissa Ferrick. The combined lawsuits were initially seeking a $350 million settlement. Spotify was charged with copyright infringement and failure to pay mechanical royalties to songwriters and publishers. Under the settlement, “Spotify has to pay record labels to use their recordings and publishers to use the underlying compositions; it pays mechanical royalties directly to publishers and public performance royalties to performing-rights groups like ASCAP, which distribute the money to their member publishers and songwriters. Streaming services don’t need to negotiate with publishers, since they can take advantage of a “statutory license” offered by the federal government. But they need to find the right publishers to pay — a challenge in cases where recordings have entered Spotify’s system without proper metadata. Spotify has always made a point of holding money aside for publishers it couldn’t identify, but doing so doesn’t make it compliant with copyright law.” To read more, click HERE. Source: Billboard
