The Santa Monica headoffice of Universal Music Group, which has significantly altered the method it dealswith Pandora royalties. Photo Credit: Coolcaesar
A brand-new report is shedding light on the income impacts of Universal Music’s revamped dealingwith of Pandora royalties.
Billboard simply justrecently checkedout the effect of UMG’s Pandora royalties-payout pivot, which veryfirst gotin the media spotlight last October. According to the matching report from Complete Music Update, Universal Music infact carriedout the retooled system (without a official statement) back in 2022.
In short, stated retooled system refers to dealingwith income from Pandora – which formerly battled for category as a non-interactive service however has for a while used on-demand listening as well – like that attributable to Spotify, Apple Music, and others.
Pandora, offered its non-interactive origins (meaning a digital platform where one cannot “interact” by choosing, avoiding, or replaying a specific tune) previously forwarded all UMG taped efficiency royalties to SoundExchange.
50 percent of the payments (made based on a mandatory license rate set by the Copyright Royalty Board) were then dispersed by the entity to the pertinent entertainers: 45 percent for included acts, the staying 5 percent for session artists. The suitable taped rightsholders, or the significant label in this circumstances, gathered the other half.
But Pandora’s addition of on-demand streaming brought with it an welcome of direct rightsholder offers. And it’s these offers that laid the foundation for a prospective reclassification of Pandora profits.
As it stands, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainme