Universal Music Group and Spotify have inked a new multi-year deal to “advance the next era of streaming innovation”.
The new agreements, centered around recorded music and music publishing, will focus “on growth, innovation and the advancement of artists’ and songwriters’ success,” said the companies in a joint statement.
The deal will also see artists, songwriters and consumers “benefit from new and evolving offers, new paid subscription tiers, bundling of music and non-music content, and a richer audio and visual content catalogue.”
“By deepening audience experiences, driving further engagement and amplifying the connection between artists, songwriters and their fans, the collaboration between these two companies will position the industry for continued subscriber growth and retention.”
Notably, the new publishing agreement establishes a “direct license between Spotify and Universal Music Publishing Group across Spotify’s current product portfolio in the US and several other countries, which reinforces a mutually beneficial relationship for songwriters on the platform.”
With the new partnership, UMG and Spotify are also renewing their “commitment to artist-centric principles, ensuring that artists continue to be properly rewarded for the share of audience engagement that they drive and that their streaming royalties remain protected through the platform’s application of its fraud detection and enforcement systems.”
Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of UMG, said in a statement, “When we first presented our vision for the next stage in the evolution of music subscription several months ago—Streaming 2.0—this is precisely the kind of partnership development we envisioned. This agreement furthers and broadens the collaboration with Spotify for both our labels and music publisher, advancing artist-centric principles to drive greater monetisation for artists and songwriters, as well as enhancing product offerings for consumers.”
Spotify Founder and CEO Daniel Ek also commented: “For nearly two decades, Spotify has made good on its commitment to return the music industry to growth, ensuring that we deliver record payouts to the benefit of artists and songwriters each new year. This partnership ensures we can continue to deliver on this promise by embracing the certainty that constant innovation is key to making paid music subscriptions even more attractive to a broader audience of fans around the world.”
Last year, Ek drew flak from both musicians and fans after claiming that the “cost of creating content” is “close to zero,” with many slamming the tech executive for being “out of touch” with his remarks.
