It looks like music streaming services like Spotify, Google and such might be getting more expensive in the future. Reports says that Apple recently submitted a proposal to set simplify streaming royalty rates to songwriters.
The report was submitted to the Copyright Royalty Board and has been discovered by Ben Sisario from the New York Times. It says that Apple wants to set songwriting royalty rate to 9.1 cents per 100 stream. If accepted, the changes would be applied to downloads and interactive streaming services starting in 2018 and last until 2022.
Spotify recently lowered the price for its sharing plan
This proposal will also simplify the complicated federal streaming rules that allow Apple’s competitors such as Spotify and YouTube, to offer free streams of music that pays arts very little money. This means that it might significantly hike costs for competing streaming services.
Since Apple does not offer free music streaming (apart from the 3 months trial period), the company might be able to avoid the rule of its own proposal. Apple pays about US$7 in royalties for each US$10 monthly Apple Music subscription. The last report from Apple stated that it has 15 million paid subscribers. Spotify on the other hand has 30 million paid subscribers and 70 million freemium users.
The new Apple Music that was introduced in WWDC 2016
A spokeswoman from Apple confirmed the filing but did not comment further. Don’t be too upset yet though, this is only one of many proposals. Competitors like Spotify, Google, Pandora, Amazon and the Recording Industry Associations of America are all expected to file their own proposals.
(Source: The New York Times via: AppleInsider, The Verge)
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