Universal Music Group and Spotify Reach New Multi-Year Agreement
Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music label, and Swedish streaming giant Spotify have reached a new multi-year agreement for recorded music and music publishing. The publishing agreement establishes a direct license between Spotify and UMG across Spotify’s current product portfolio in the U.S. and several other countries.
The partnership is intended to benefit artists, songwriters, and consumers by offering new and evolving offers, paid subscription tiers, bundling of music and non-music content, and a richer audio and visual content catalog. According to Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek, the agreement will ensure constant innovation, making music subscriptions even more attractive to a broader worldwide audience.
This deal comes as Spotify has been working to boost profitability by laying off employees, pulling back on podcasts, and cutting marketing spending over the past year. The company has also raised the prices of its U.S. plans to capitalize on demand for its premium products.
