Music Publishers Crack Down on Unlicensed Music Use in Spotify Podcasts
By Movieguide® Contributor
The National Music Publishers’ Association is cracking down on the use of unlicensed music in podcasts on Spotify.
On Feb. 4, the group began sending notices to remove over 2,500 unlicensed works of its members on the music streaming platform.
This is not the first time the NMPA has gone after Spotify. The group sued the company in June of 2024 for its music-audiobook bundling deal, claiming it cut royalties for songwriters.
Spotify believes this this new lawsuit comes from a deeper place of retaliation from a failed lawsuit last week, where “the Mechanical Licensing Collective…accused the streaming giant of unfairly cutting royalty rates as part of its audiobooks-music ‘bundling’ option announced last year.”
READ MORE: UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP, SPOTIFY SIGN MULTI-YEAR DEAL TO HELP ARTISTS SUCCEED
“This is a weak reaction to the judge dismissing the MLC’s lawsuit,” a Spotify spokesperson told Variety. “Last summer, the NMPA claimed that there were unlicensed works in podcasts on Spotify. The fact that the NMPA waited months, despite multiple written requests by Spotify for details, which they never bothered to answer, to report these episodes only further emphasizes that this is a press stunt. Platforms like Spotify, which are home to millions of pieces of UGC content, regularly receive takedown requests, and, as always, we will act promptly and, where appropriate, remove the episodes in question.”
However, the NMPA disagrees. NMPA president and CEO David Israelite said, “Spotify has thousands of unlicensed songs in its podcasts, which it has done nothing to remedy. This takedown action comes as no surprise, we have warned of this issue for some time.”
He continued, “Podcasts are a growing source of revenue for songwriters and publishers, and it is essential that podcasts provide lawfully produced entertainment. This is not hard to do, and Spotify knows, and has known, how to fix this problem for their users. We hope podcast hosts will stand up for their fellow creators and demand that Spotify do better.”
The takedown includes the following publishers: ABKCO, Anthem Entertainment, Big Machine Music, BMG, Concord Music Publishing, Downtown Music Publishing, Hipgnosis Songs Group, Kobalt, Mayimba Music, peermusic, Primary Wave Music, Reservoir, The Royalty Network, Inc., Sony Music Publishing, Spirit Music Group, Ultra Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music and Wixen Music Publishing.
READ MORE: SPOTIFY SUED OVER NEW AUDIOBOOK BUNDLED PLANS
- Content: +3Share:
- Content: +3