spotify support under complaints from neil

#Spotify support under complaints from neil license#

Yet, in most instances, the right of a composer to withhold use of their music by a noninteractive service relies on an untested theory. Performers like Young, who are also songwriters, may have arguments that, while the law mandates that sound recordings be made available to music services, they may have some ability to withhold the rights to the musical compositions (remembering that there are two copyrights in a piece of recorded music, one to the sound recording and one to the underlying musical composition or “musical work” – the lyrics and notes that comprise a song).

#Spotify support under complaints from neil license#

In fact, as the idea of the statutory license is to give all services equal access to all music in exchange for the payment of a market rate determined by the CRB, allowing an artist to withhold their music from a statutory service would defeat the purpose by allowing an artist to hold out their music for a higher payment. There is nothing in the statute or rules set by the CRB that would give an artist (or the copyright holder in the sound recording) the right to prohibit a service from using its music. The “statutory license” that noninteractive services can use simply by paying the royalties set by the Copyright Royalty Board, gives those services access to all legally released recordings. This is unlike the use of the music on a noninteractive service, like an online simulcast of a broadcast station, where there is a statutory license giving a music service the right to use all music that is legally released.Īs we wrote here and here, on a noninteractive service, a musician would have no control over the use of their recordings by a music service. See, e.g., our article here about Adele not allowing her last album to be streamed for a period of time after it was initially released.

As we wrote last week, and have noted in the past, on an interactive service like Spotify, where users can control what songs they want to hear by putting them into playlists or listening on demand, the copyright holders in a sound recording have some ability to dictate whether or not a song will appear on a music service. Looking at the artist side of the Young-Rogan dispute, as Spotify is generally an on-demand service, Young has the ability (assuming that it has not been relinquished to others or signed away by contract) to ask that his songs be pulled from the service. Even with these banner payouts, as we noted in our article on the Spotify side of the equation, the music industry is still not satisfied, recently calling the payouts “appallingly low.” More on that issue in an upcoming post on the discussions of a US broadcast radio sound recording performance royalty.

Thus, because of the sheer numbers of listeners, and assuming that Young is representative of other artists, Spotify is responsible for the majority of the streaming revenue that has allowed the music industry to enjoy in recent years some of their most profitable years ever. The 60% number in and of itself is interesting as, while artists and other music representatives complain about the Spotify per song payouts (likely because they offer a free, ad-supported tier with lower payouts than those from subscription services), the wider variety of services offered by Spotify seem to bring in big numbers of listeners – likely including many who would not subscribe to a pay-music service. Given the other streaming services that now exist, his music is still available and generating revenue on his catalog, though apparently less than the amount generated by Spotify. Young himself said that he would lose 60% of his streaming revenue from pulling his music, which one source estimated to be over $700,000. Today, we will look at how music rights and royalties impact decisions like those of Neil Young and other musicians who may have wanted to pull their music to support the protest over Rogan’s podcast.Īt its most basic level, there is the question of how much the artists themselves stand to lose from the withdrawal of their music from a service like Spotify. In that article, we looked at the relationship between music royalties and the decision of Spotify and other music services to emphasize podcasts and other talk programming over music. Last week, we discussed the controversy started by Neil Young removing his music from Spotify because of its carriage of Joe Rogan’s podcast.