UMG reveals 'Streaming 2.0' deal with Spotify for recordings and publishing

UMG reveals 'Streaming 2.0' deal with Spotify for recordings and publishing

Universal Music Group and Spotify have unveiled new multi-year agreements for recorded music and music publishing.

According to the announcement, the agreements are “focused on growth, innovation and the advancement of artists’ and songwriters’ success”.

It follows a recent UMG deal with Amazon Music that also prioritised innovation in audio streaming.

Sir Lucian Grainge, chairman & CEO, Universal Music Group, said: “When we first presented our vision for the next stage in the evolution of music subscription several months ago – Streaming 2.0 – this is precisely the kind of partnership development we envisioned. This agreement furthers and broadens the collaboration with Spotify for both our labels and music publisher, advancing artist-centric principles to drive greater monetisation for artists and songwriters, as well as enhancing product offerings for consumers.” 

Daniel Ek, Spotify’s founder and CEO, said: “For nearly two decades, Spotify has made good on its commitment to return the music industry to growth, ensuring that we deliver record payouts to the benefit of artists and songwriters each new year. This partnership ensures we can continue to deliver on this promise by embracing the certainty that constant innovation is key to making paid music subscriptions even more attractive to a broader audience of fans around the world.”

This agreement advances artist-centric principles to drive greater monetisation for artists and songwriters, as well as enhancing product offerings for consumers

Sir Lucian Grainge

Under the new agreements, UMG and Spotify will collaborate closely to advance the next era of streaming innovation. 

“Artists, songwriters and consumers will benefit from new and evolving offers, new paid subscription tiers, bundling of music and non-music content, and a richer audio and visual content catalogue,” said a statement. “By deepening audience experiences, driving further engagement and amplifying the connection between artists, songwriters and their fans, the collaboration between these two companies will position the industry for continued subscriber growth and retention.”

The new publishing agreement establishes a direct licence between Spotify and Universal Music Publishing Group across Spotify’s current product portfolio in the US and several other countries.

For UMPG, the deal addresses in part the lower mechanical royalty rate for Spotify's bundling of music with audiobooks in the US, which proved controversial in the publishing sector. 

The new agreements also renew the companies’ commitment to artist-centric principles, ensuring that artists continue to be properly rewarded for the share of audience engagement that they drive and that their streaming royalties remain protected through the platform’s application of its fraud detection and enforcement systems.

 

author twitter FOLLOW Andre Paine


For more stories like this, and to keep up to date with all our market leading news, features and analysis, sign up to receive our daily Morning Briefing newsletter

subscribe link free-trial link

follow us...