{"id":794738,"date":"2019-04-11T12:26:12","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T18:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=821115"},"modified":"2019-04-11T12:26:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T18:26:12","slug":"nashville-songwriters-indict-spotify-at-boisterous-town-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/nashville-songwriters-indict-spotify-at-boisterous-town-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Nashville Songwriters Indict Spotify at Boisterous Town Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nashville songwriters turned out in force on Wednesday afternoon to escalate the fight against four music-streaming services on royalty rates. Earlier this year, Spotify<\/a>, Amazon, Google and SiriusXM\/Pandora announced they would appeal a 2018 ruling<\/a> from the Copyright Royalty Board \u2014 the government body that sets royalty rates for statutory licenses \u2014 that would see publishers\u2019 and songwriters\u2019 cuts of revenue rise by 44% over the next five years. The four services have disputed the decision and asked for a lower rate increase, rankling the songwriting community, which is especially taking issue with Spotify\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpotify is the face of this fight because, of the companies that are appealing, two of them, Google and Pandora, came to us and said, \u2018We don\u2019t want to appeal. If our competitors appeal, we will feel the need to join to protect our own business, but we\u2019re not going to appeal,’\u201d says David Israelite, the CEO of the National Music Publishers Association, who presented the town hall-style event with Nashville Songwriters Association International. \u201cWe further heard that Spotify was the one telling people, \u2018If we do it as a group, they can\u2019t single any one of us out.\u2019 They were the ringleader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israelite, along with NSAI\u2019s Bart Herbison and songwriters Liz Rose<\/a>, Lee Thomas Miller and Steve Bogard, NSAI\u2019s president of the board, spoke with Rolling Stone<\/em> after the town hall and Q&A session, which, held at Music City club Third & Lindsley, felt at times more like a rally and indictment of Spotify \u2014 a company that many songwriters as well as recording artists had previously regarded as one of the most industry-sympathetic of the digital music services. Both seating and parking were scarce, with notable songwriters like Rose, Buddy Cannon and Bob DiPiero in the audience. According to NSAI, 3,500 more watched the town hall via Livestream.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should be insulted,\u201d Herbison told the assembled songwriters from the stage, where four chairs were arranged in a row with placards for Spotify, Amazon, Google and Pandora. Representatives for each streaming service were invited to attend, but none did.<\/p>\n

Herbison railed against Spotify and pointed out the increasing support for the songwriters\u2019 cause in Nashville, noting that the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. canceled a planned ad buy with the streaming powerhouse as a show of solidarity with the city\u2019s songwriters. \u201cThe Nashville songwriting community is this city\u2019s soul and they are at the heart of almost all of our messaging and success. While we loved the uniqueness of the Spotify campaign we were planning, it was an easy decision to drop the program in support of our songwriter friends,\u201d Butch Spyridon, CEO of the NCVC, confirmed to Rolling Stone in an email.<\/p>\n

Herbison also pointed out a new resolution introduced on Tuesday by Metro Nashville Councilman Jeff Syracuse, who called for all streaming companies that are appealing the CRB\u2019s rate increase to drop the appeals. Syracuse voted against millions of dollars in incentives for Amazon, who have plans to open a regional headquarters in Nashville, because of their involvement in the CRB appeal.<\/p>\n

It was Israelite, however, who offered the most sharp skewering of Spotify, delivering a point-by-point rebuttal of the service\u2019s March 11th \u201cWhat You Need to Know\u201d posting<\/a> about the appeal. It was that blog, as Israelite calls it, that started the firestorm. \u201cThe writers saw through that. It was meant to trick them, and try to deceive them, and the reaction to that was so intense,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are pissed,\u201d adds Herbison, who says the end goal is nothing short of Spotify and the other three services \u2014 which does not include Apple Music \u2014 dropping the appeal. \u201cThat\u2019s part of the message today: we\u2019re in it for the long haul. Songwriters historically create the product which keeps everybody rich, with the least pay, so we\u2019ve got a long way to go. We\u2019ve been fighting this fight for a century and we\u2019re going to fight it until we don\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Bogard, it\u2019s not just the songwriters\u2019 livelihood that is in jeopardy. \u201cIf you lose the songwriter that doesn\u2019t perform, you lose the performer that doesn\u2019t write songs,\u201d he says, highlighting the songwriter-artist arrangement that is so prevalent in Nashville, where country-radio stars rarely write their own hits alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe songs you hear on the radio are mostly songs about the lives of us,\u201d says Miller. \u201cWe walk into those rooms with, \u2018Guess what happened at my house today? Guess what my wife said?\u2019 And then we write a song for that artist about that story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery songwriter in the world needs to know what\u2019s going on,\u201d says Rose, who has written hits for Taylor Swift, Little Big Town and Carrie Underwood. \u201cI worry about young songwriters. Think about if Kris Kristofferson were 20 years old today.\u201d<\/p>\n

A rep for Spotify did not immediately reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

A Los Angeles town hall is scheduled for May 13th.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nashville songwriters turned out in force on Wednesday afternoon to escalate the fight against four music-streaming services on royalty rates. Earlier this year, Spotify, Amazon, Google and SiriusXM\/Pandora announced they would appeal a 2018 ruling from the Copyright Royalty Board \u2014 the government body that sets royalty rates for statutory licenses \u2014 that would see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-794738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 05:13:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}