The National Music Publishers' Association has called on the Federal Trade Commission to examine Spotify's addition of audiobook content into all of its paid subscription plans.
  • Dragomus@lemmy.world
    1·
    4 months ago

    Hmm what am I missing here…

    Spotify is raising prices because it wants to sell product “B” next to “A” that it already had. But now the management of Product A is claiming that the extra money from raised prices belongs to them because spotify was selling A first?

    That is quite ballsy … granted I expected nothing less from the greedy music industry, but this is quite on a new level.

    • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      Okay so in plain terms (from what I can tell) they’re arguing that Spotify isn’t paying them enough because they have product A and product B. A bundle of A and B has their prices raised but only costs a dollar more than product A with its costs raised. So they’re arguing that they deserve a larger part of product A since B clearly isn’t adding much value to their platform.

      Then additionally they claim that by offering product B as a standalone subscription, the price they’re setting for product B only serves to allow Spotify to pay them less for A in those bundles.

      This makes sense because it’s a good way to reduce the money paid to the music side of the business by inserting new things into their services and then claiming that the new rate increases are due to that new service (that they don’t have to pay out as much to audio book companies for).

  • Melody Fwygon@lemmy.oneEnglish
    11·
    4 months ago

    It’s clear that they made an end run around the rules, laws and agreements they made.

    I hope some judge throws the book in their face for it and forces them to pay out of their profits to the artists at the rate they agreed was fair before they began selling audiobooks.

    • Doom@ttrpg.network
      2·
      4 months ago

      Spotify is predatory and isn’t paying artists enough for their content but a lot of anti spotify news anymore is envious and just as predatory music companies trying to take a bite out of them.

      Spotify is no worse than anyone else except very lesser known artists can put their music on here and actually have a chance at exposure that other platforms don’t offer.

      Overall 6/10. I’ve tried other music streaming platforms and methods and in my opinion Spotify has what I want. Everyone will price gouge if they could. But I especially will never use YT music.