Spotify Hit With Royalties Lawsuit From Licensing Collective

Music streaming behemoth Spotify USA Inc. re-categorized its premium subscription service in such a way that it will cut the royalties paid out to musicians by nearly 50%, according to a new lawsuit filed by the Mechanical Licensing Collective.

The MLC alleges Spotify unjustly changed its top tier subscription to a “bundle” subscription offering in March by saying they were allowing premium members to access a new feature called Audiobooks Access.

The bundle subscription reduced the amount of revenue Spotify reports to the MLC—in this case by roughly 50%, according to the complaintfiled Thursday in the US District Court ...