The Mechanical Licensing Collective has secured an important procedural ruling in its authorized battle with Spotify over streaming royalty funds.
On Thursday (September 25), the Federal District Courtroom in New York issued an order granting The MLC’s request to file an amended grievance within the case.
The unique grievance, filed by the Mechanical Licensing Collective final Might, alleged that Spotify considerably underpaid royalties after its determination to report its Premium subscription streaming choices as bundles.
In her September 25 ruling, obtained by MBW, and which you’ll be able to learn in full right here, Decide Analisa Torres wrote that “MLC ought to be given at the very least one alternative to amend the grievance with the good thing about the Courtroom’s reasoning within the Dismissal Order.”
The MLC should file its amended grievance by October 2, 2025.
The battle between the MLC and Spotify started in March 2024 when Spotify reclassified its Premium subscription tiers as “bundles,” as they now embody 15 hours of audiobook entry every month.
The transfer controversially resulted in Spotify paying a decrease mechanical royalty fee to publishers and songwriters in the US.
Right here’s a quick historical past explaining the context behind the transfer and the way it led to a authorized combat between the MLC and Spotify:
- It stemmed from a 2022 US Copyright Royalty Board ruling on statutory precepts known as “Phonorecords IV,” which established that bundled multimedia providers might pay a decrease mechanical royalty fee than standalone music subscription providers.
- SPOT subsequently added audiobooks to its Premium music service and claimed this certified as a “bundle,” permitting it to chop mechanical royalty funds to publishers and songwriters within the US.
- The transfer started affecting payouts in Spring 2024. The choice attracted authorized motion from the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), which filed a lawsuit in opposition to Spotify in Might 2024, alleging the platform was illegally underpaying royalties to songwriters and publishers.
- The MLC’s lawsuit was dismissed in January 2025, with the court docket holding that the Premium Service is a bundle.
- The next month, the MLC sought to reopen the case and amend its grievance.
- Decide Torres has now dominated that the MLC ought to have the chance to take action.
‘The MLC welcomes this Order granting our movement to file an amended grievance and recognizing our proper to hunt restoration of underpaid royalties from Spotify,” the org advised MBW.
“This is a crucial case. We introduced it to make sure streaming royalties are correctly paid beneath the legislation. We stay up for additional demonstrating the benefit in our claims.”
The MLC
It added: “This is a crucial case. We introduced it to make sure streaming royalties are correctly paid beneath the legislation. We stay up for additional demonstrating the benefit in our claims.”
A Spokesperson for the US-based Nationwide Music Publishers Affiliation additionally commented on the court docket’s determination, noting that it arrives “on the heels of the historic $2.5 billion FTC settlement in opposition to Amazon, cracking down on its misleading subscription schemes”.
“The choose in the present day upheld the MLC’s capacity to file a brand new grievance alleging Spotify improperly used the Audiobooks Entry plan and that Spotify truly owes royalties on the Audiobooks Entry plan as a result of it comes with music.”
Spokesperson for the NMPA
Added the NMPA spokesperson: “We’re extraordinarily happy that the case in opposition to Spotify by the MLC has new momentum. The choose in the present day upheld the MLC’s capacity to file a brand new grievance alleging Spotify improperly used the Audiobooks Entry plan and that Spotify truly owes royalties on the Audiobooks Entry plan as a result of it comes with music.
“This implies songwriters and publishers have motive to hope that Spotify’s misleading practices might be stopped. You can’t unilaterally convert music subscribers to bundles together with audiobooks – to pay a decrease royalty fee – then increase costs and make it exceedingly troublesome to return to a music-only plan.”
In keeping with Thursday’s court docket submitting, the MLC needs to make two major amendments to its grievance, each stemming from new theories about how Spotify allegedly violates Part 115 of the Copyright Act:
1. Synthetic Value Manipulation: The MLC alleges that Spotify “created Audiobooks Entry and artificially inflated its worth for this objective, by no means intending to noticeably market Audiobooks Entry as a ‘actual’ plan.”
In keeping with the submitting, Spotify launched the plan “solely in the US, and it did so with hardly any promoting” and used the $9.99 worth to cut back “the pro-rata portion of Premium’s income that’s attributable to music streaming from one hundred pc (previous to March 2024) to as little as 37 %.”
2: Improper Reporting Classification The MLC contends that “Spotify has knowledgeable MLC that it combines the reporting and fee of royalties due in reference to Audiobooks Entry with the reporting and fee of royalties due in reference to Spotify Free,” which “contravenes the plain language of the relevant rules.”
The submitting argues this permits Spotify to keep away from larger “Bundled Subscription Providing” charges and as an alternative pay decrease charges without cost providers, thereby “sidestepping vital royalty-calculation provisions beneath the Copyright Act.”
Spotify, in its most up-to-date Type 6-Ok filed with the SEC final month for its Q2 monetary outcomes, identified that the MLC filed a request on April 1 to file an amended grievance alleging that the streaming firm “improperly valued the parts of the Premium Service bundle and improperly reported royalties for the Audiobook Entry Tier product”.
SPOT famous that “the MLC is entitled to attraction the unique determination after the decision of its new claims” and that, “if the MLC have been to attraction and in the end be fully profitable in its case, the extra royalties that may be due in relation to the interval March 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025 could be roughly €256 million, plus doubtlessly penalties and curiosity, which [SPOT] can’t fairly estimate.”
That €256 million estimate works out to USD $290 million in accordance with the common alternate fee for Q2 revealed by the European Central Financial institution.
MBW has reached out to Spotify for a remark concerning the newest improvement on this case.
All three majors have now inked direct publishing agreements with Spotify that transfer past the standard CRB mannequin within the US.
Spotify signed an settlement with Sony Music Publishing earlier this month that features a new direct licensing association within the US, which the streaming firm mentioned will, “ensur[e] songwriters share extra immediately within the development of streaming”.
Common Music Publishing Group and Warner Chappell Music signed direct licensing offers with Spotify in January and February.
Spotify additionally signed a direct licensing cope with Kobalt masking the US final month.Music Enterprise Worldwide
