When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not this time.
By adding audiobooks into Spotify’s premium tier, the streaming service now claims it qualifies to pay a discounted “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium streams, given Spotify now has to pay licensing for both books and music from the same price tag — which will only be a dollar higher than when music was the only premium offering. Additionally, Spotify will reclassify its duo and family subscription plans as bundles as well.
It fuckin is rad! I love it so much! I mostly listen to the Comfy channel but I’ve found some wicked stuff on the main channel too. There’s usually a link so you can find them on the fedi or buy a track too. Maybe it’s because of the fediverse/freedom/generosity ethic and I’m in a biased bubble but everything on there is just so genuinely good, even if it’s not normally my taste. I’ve had a bunch of really sweet evenings listening to it and my gf always asks what the track is when I put it on. I kinda want to volunteer for the channel tbh. Check it out and feel free to DM me with what you think! I’m spending more time on Lemmy than Mastodon these days, so I’m not seeing people mention them via hashtags as much. RFF and Pixelfed are basically the best thing about the internet right now imo :)