{"id":2442,"date":"2024-08-29T14:08:56","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T14:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/spotify-blasts-mlcs-audiobook-royalties-lawsuit-as-nonsensical-and-wasteful\/"},"modified":"2024-08-29T14:08:56","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T14:08:56","slug":"spotify-blasts-mlcs-audiobook-royalties-lawsuit-as-nonsensical-and-wasteful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/spotify-blasts-mlcs-audiobook-royalties-lawsuit-as-nonsensical-and-wasteful\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotify Blasts MLC’s Audiobook Royalties Lawsuit As ‘Nonsensical’ and ‘Wasteful’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tSpotify is demanding that a federal judge toss out a lawsuit filed by the Mechanical Licensing Collective over royalty rates, calling the case \u201cnonsensical\u201d and \u201cwasteful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe MLC sued earlier this year, claiming Spotify had \u201cunilaterally and unlawfully\u201d chosen to cut its music royalty payments nearly in half through bookmaking trickery \u2013 namely, by claiming that the addition of audiobooks to the service entitled the company to pay a lower \u201cbundled\u201d rate.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in a motion to dismiss filed in court Tuesday, Spotify calls those claims \u201cmeritless and wasteful\u201d \u2013 arguing that making hundreds of thousands of audiobooks available to subscribers was not a \u201ctoken\u201d gesture aimed at reducing music royalties.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMLC\u2019s position is nonsensical and factually unsupportable,\u201d Spotify\u2019s lawyers write. \u201cAnd it profoundly devalues the contributions of the tens of thousands of book authors whose works are available with a Spotify Premium subscription\u2014from literary luminaries, to mainstays on best sellers lists, to up-and-coming writers who are finding their audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe MLC, which collects streaming royalties for songwriters and publishers, filed its lawsuit in late May \u2014 a week after Billboard <\/em>estimated that Spotify\u2019s move would result in the company paying roughly $150 million less over the next year. In its complaint, the MLC claimed Spotify was \u201cerroneously recharacterizing\u201d the nature of its streaming services to secure the lower rate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe financial consequences of Spotify\u2019s failure to meet its statutory obligations are enormous for songwriters and music publishers,\u201d the group\u2019s attorneys wrote at the time. \u201cIf unchecked, the impact on songwriters and music publishers of Spotify\u2019s unlawful underreporting could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt issue in the lawsuit is Spotify\u2019s recent addition of audiobooks to its premium subscription service. The streamer believes that because of the new offering, it\u2019s now entitled to pay a discounted \u201cbundled\u201d royalty rate under the federal legal settlement that governs how much streamers pay rightsholders.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Tuesday\u2019s motion, Spotify\u2019s lawyers strongly defend that interpretation. They argue that the market for audiobooks has attracted \u201cbillions in consumer dollars\u201d and that adding books was the kind of valuable new perk that had been intended to be covered by the lower bundled rate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt the heart of this dispute is an easily answered question: Is audiobook streaming distinct from music streaming, offering greater than token value?\u201d the company\u2019s lawyers write. \u201cThe answer is indisputably yes, and there is no need for federal court litigation to confirm it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rule at issue says that streamers can use the bundled rate if they offer \u201cone or more other products or services having more than token value.\u201d Claiming that more than 200,000 audiobooks does not qualify under that rule is \u201cbaffling,\u201d Spotify\u2019s lawyers write.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe creative output of these authors is not merely of \u2018token value\u2019,\u201d Tuesday\u2019s filing says. \u201cAcceptance of that unassailable, commonsense proposition should end this meritless and wasteful litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMLC\u2019s attorneys will file a formal response to the motion in court in the coming months. In a statement to Billboard <\/em>on Thursday, the group said: \u201cThe MLC\u2019s general practice is not to comment publicly on pending litigations. That said, we would reiterate that we take the enforcement obligations assigned to us by Congress extremely seriously and would refer you to the complaint we filed in this matter for more details regarding our position on this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spotify is demanding that a federal judge toss out a lawsuit filed by the Mechanical Licensing Collective over royalty rates, calling the case \u201cnonsensical\u201d and \u201cwasteful.\u201d The MLC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3215,3213,303,3214,3216,1219,1217,3217],"class_list":["post-2442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-audiobook","tag-blasts","tag-lawsuit","tag-mlcs","tag-nonsensical","tag-royalties","tag-spotify","tag-wasteful"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}