In January, Spotify won a ruling to dismiss the lawsuit filed against it in the US by the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) over its ‘bundle’ royalties. However, the MLC won the right to amend and refile its complaint, which it did earlier this month. Now Spotify has filed its response to that complaint.
There is plenty of spiky language attacking the MLC’s case – which focuses on the fact that as a ‘bundle’ of music and other services, Spotify pays lower mechanical royalties than it would as a pure music DSP. The filing also asserts that “despite public statements by MLC and publisher representatives to the contrary, MLC’s remaining claims would not result in any dramatic increase in royalty payments to songwriters and publishers, even if MLC were correct about its present legal theories (which it is not)”.
Note, Spotify has disclosed exactly how much of an increase there would be in its quarterly financial filings since the lawsuit was first filed. “If the MLC were to appeal and ultimately be entirely successful in its case, the additional royalties that would be due in relation to the period March 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025 would be approximately €256 million,” explained its Q2 filing.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source musically.com ’
