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.

  • jae@reddthat.com
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    8 months ago

    I agree that many people listened to music for free via radio but I’m skeptical that it was just a hobby? What about the Zune/iPod days? People went through more efforts to curate a library, no? Whether it was with music downloaded illegally, or actually paid for via iTunes…

    • Aux@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It was rarely curated. You just listen to the radio, hear some cool tunes, buy the albums of the artists, the end.

      • jae@reddthat.com
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        8 months ago

        That’s what I meant by curated! Taking the effort to buy some cool songs/albums you liked. Is there a connotation to “curation” that I don’t know about?