Songwriters are going to be getting a huge pay raise soon, thanks to Copyright Royalty Board. On Saturday, the CRB announced that songwriters will get a pay raise from streaming service for the next five years. The rate will be increased from 10.5 percent of revenue to 15.1 percent. This is a 43.8 percent increase.
This is the largest increase in CRB history. It comes as a result of a dispute between the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and the music streaming services run by Spotify, Apple, Google, Pandora, and Amazon.
This ruling included a late fee penalty for streaming services that don’t give payment to publishers and songwriters on time. “This is the best mechanical rate scenario for songwriters in US history which is critically important as interactive streaming continues to dominate the market,” NMPA CEO David Israelite said in a statement.
It’s worth mentioning that publishers and songwriters are still paid far less than music labels. Labels take in $3.82 for every $1 publishers and songwriters make. NMPA in its part was looking for a per-stream rate for songwriters, which would have helped shrink the pay gap, but the CRB didn’t grant that request.
