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Flaunt Weeekly Is Amazon Music joining Spotify in establishing a 1,000-stream minimum before tracks can generate recording royalties? The question is front of mind – even if a concrete answer isn’t readily available – following the announcement of an “artist-centric” Universal Music deal.

Amazon Music and UMG revealed that bolstered deal on Monday, pointing to a variety of components, the most interesting being the planned joint “advancement of artist-centric principles.”

While the companies opted against diving into those principles’ particulars, the artist-centric descriptor remains closely associated with sweeping payout changes at platforms like Deezer and Spotify.

The latter streaming service moved forward with a collection of highly controversial recording-royalty pivots closer to the top of 2024. Undoubtedly the most important of said pivots, Spotify’s initially mentioned 1,000-stream minimum officially went live in April – thereby preventing any track with less than 1,000 annual plays from receiving recording royalties.

As explored by DMN Prothe seemingly minor maneuver had a decidedly significant impact; the majority of on-platform recordings ceased generating any royalties at all, to the clear-cut benefit of the major labels and their stream-heavy catalogs.

Now, a similar setback for indie and unsigned acts could be in store at Amazon Music, which, as highlighted, didn’t exactly spell out the expanded UMG pact’s precise elements. However, when addressing the deal, Universal Music head Lucian Grainge applauded the Amazon-owned platform’s “deep commitment to the interests of” his company’s artists.

“We appreciate Amazon Music’s deep commitment to the interests of our artists,” Grainge relayed in part, “and look forward to progressing our shared artist-centric objectives through product innovation and accelerating growth of their service.”

Digital Music News reached out to Amazon Music for additional details about the artist-centric union – and specifically whether there’s a minimum-play threshold before tracks start receiving royalties – but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing.

In any event, it’ll certainly be worth monitoring the impact of the agreement, also expected to encompass “increased fraud protection” as well as “exclusive content with UMG artists,” heading into 2025.

Among different things, the tie-up has arrived against the backdrop of subscriber-decline worries and slipping subscription-revenue growth at the majors.

Plus, Amazon Music in November announced the addition of one monthly audiobook to its existing streaming plans. It remains to be seen whether the service will proceed to formally reclassify the same plans as bundles – thereby reaping massive royalty savings at the expense of songwriters and publishers.

(This “bundling loophole” is purportedly made possible by the language of the Phono IV determination, which runs through 2027 and, once again as charted by DMN Prohas enabled Spotify to save millions on the year. As we’ve coveredthere’s seemingly little stopping other streaming players from following suit.)

Spotify, capitalizing on its own audiobook embrace, did just that earlier in 2024 – eliciting firmly worded pushback from the NMPA and a lawsuit from the MLCto name a couple consequences.

Bearing in mind the above-noted 1,000-stream minimum’s winners, the wider artist-centric shift, and the timing thereof, however, the majors themselves have been conspicuously quiet about Spotify’s bundling frenzy.

Following that point to its logical conclusion, we should know sooner rather than later whether Amazon Music has opted to follow in the music-streaming leader’s footsteps – with far-reaching implications for all manner of artists, songwriters, and publishers.