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.

  • viking@infosec.pub
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    8 months ago

    Yeah I’m done with spotify.

    Back when it was a fiver, I could get the appeal and had a subscription myself.

    At 11 bucks it comes at the price of a CD per month, every month. I didn’t buy that much music annually, ever. So right now we are entering a territory where streaming is exceeding the price of my regular music consumption patterns. I’ll go back to buying physical media and torrenting whatever old stuff is no longer available and can’t be found on ebay.

    Fuck 'em with a cactus.