{"id":2148978,"date":"2025-11-11T14:42:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T14:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2148978"},"modified":"2025-11-11T14:42:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T14:42:00","slug":"spotify-nmpa-licensing-deal-gives-publishers-a-new-royalty-stream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/spotify-nmpa-licensing-deal-gives-publishers-a-new-royalty-stream\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotify\u2013NMPA Licensing Deal Gives Publishers a New Royalty Stream"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tSpotify and the National Music Publishers\u2019 Association (NMPA) have joined forces to create a new opt-in license for NMPA members to enter into a direct license agreement for \u201cexpanded audiovisual rights\u201d in the U.S., according to a press release about the deal. NMPA members can sign up using a portal, and the deal is said to increase the royalty-earning potential of participating publishers and writers by offering them a new audiovisual royalty stream. <\/p>\n

\n\tNews of the deal comes during a time of great tension between Spotify and the NMPA. In March 2024, Spotify began paying music publishers and songwriters a\u00a0discounted royalty rate<\/a>\u00a0for streams on its premium tiers. Spotify explained that by adding audiobooks to its premium offerings, these subscriptions could be reclassified as \u201cbundles,\u201d a type of plan that qualifies for a discounted rate on U.S. mechanical royalties, given that multiple products are offered under one price tag.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe NMPA and its allies have fought this assertion ever since, spearheading a multi-faceted attack against Spotify soon after. This included the Mechanical Licensing Collective filing a lawsuit against Spotify over the matter<\/a>, and the NMPA filing a legislative proposal<\/a>, an FTC complaint<\/a> and cease-and-desist notices over allegedly hosting lyrics, videos and podcast content<\/a> that contained their members\u2019 copyrighted works without proper licenses.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis deal, at least, potentially creates a pathway for any alleged unlicensed videos on Spotify to become licensed. According to a source close to the deal, the NMPA does not plan to back down from its other pushes against Spotify, given that this deal does not address bundling.<\/p>\n

\n\tNews of the agreement comes after a series of announcements from NMPA members \u2014 including Universal Music Publishing Group<\/a>, Sony Music Publishing<\/a>, Warner Chappell Music<\/a>, Kobalt<\/a> and their parent companies \u2014 each of which came to direct deals with Spotify throughout 2025. Little is known about the nature of the deals beyond what is disclosed in the press release, but each was said to improve remuneration for songwriters and offer multi-year agreements for the companies, often covering both publishing and recorded music.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis new partnership with the NMPA will increase revenue for songwriters and independent publishers who are the heart of the industry,\u201d says Alex Norstr\u00f6m<\/strong>, co-president and chief business officer, Spotify. \u201cWe look forward to continuing to work with the NMPA to create new value and opportunities for their members.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cWe are pleased that this deal offers indie publishers the chance to enter into direct deals with Spotify in regard to audiovisual streaming functionality on the platform alongside the recently announced larger publishing companies,\u201d says David Israelite<\/strong>, president and CEO, NMPA. \u201cThis new income stream reflects the growing value of songs as digital platforms offer new capabilities to consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NMPA Opt-In Portal is open to eligible publishers beginning\u00a0today, Nov. 11, with onboarding continuing through Dec. 19.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.billboard.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spotify and the National Music Publishers\u2019 Association (NMPA) have joined forces to create a new opt-in license for NMPA members to enter into a direct license agreement for \u201cexpanded audiovisual rights\u201d in the U.S., according to a press release about the deal. NMPA members can sign up using a portal, and the deal is said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[410904,22821],"class_list":["post-2148978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-nmpa","tag-spotify"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Which-Had-the-Best-Returns-in-the-Last-Three-Years.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2148978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2148979,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148978\/revisions\/2148979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2148978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2148978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2148978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}