Spotify Announces New Multiyear Deal With Universal Music Group
Spotify and Universal Music Group announced a new multiyear deal on Sunday, establishing a direct license between the streamer and music label in the U.S. and several other countries.
The agreement will be focused on “growth, innovation and the advancement of artists’ and songwriters’ success,” a press release said.
The release also noted that artists, songwriters and listeners will benefit from “new and evolving” offers to come from the deal, including “new paid subscription tiers, bundling of music and non-music content and a richer audio and visual content catalog.”
The deal is part of UMG’s Streaming 2.0 plan, the music label’s recently published vision for the future of music streaming which emphasizes increased listener value through subscriptions and exclusive content.
“This is precisely the kind of partnership development we envisioned,” chairman and CEO of UMG Sir Lucian Grainge said in a statement of the Spotify deal. “This agreement furthers and broadens the collaboration with Spotify for both our labels and music publisher, advancing artist-centric principles to drive greater monetization for artists and songwriters, as well as enhancing product offerings for consumers.”
The release did not note specific details on the deal’s value or its exact length.
Spotify’s founder and CEO Daniel Ek added: “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.”
UMG also expanded its partnership with Amazon music in December, citing their Streaming 2.0 vision and saying in a statement the company would work with its partner “collaboratively to address, among other things, unlawful AI-generated content, as well as protecting against fraud and misattribution.”
The Spotify deal echoed this language, noting the agreements renew both companies’ “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.”
