{"id":2441051,"date":"2019-02-26T09:48:09","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T16:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=800281"},"modified":"2019-02-26T09:48:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T16:48:09","slug":"can-spotify-launch-in-india-it-depends-who-you-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/can-spotify-launch-in-india-it-depends-who-you-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Spotify Launch in India? It Depends Who You Ask"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Spotify<\/a> really, really wants to launch in India. The streaming company has been staffing up an office in Mumbai for a year, and finally suggested in website updates recently, after deflecting rumors for months, that January 31st would be the date it rolled out to 1.3 billion potential new customers. But that date came and went and now there\u2019s a new snag: Warner Music Group<\/a>, the third-largest music company in the world, is suing to block the launch.<\/p>\n

Warner filed an injunction against Spotify in a court in Mumbai, claiming that Spotify \u201cabruptly changed course\u201d in licensing negotiations and left Warner with \u201cno choice\u201d but to pursue legal action to stall the service\u2019s launch in India, Bloomberg<\/em> reported<\/a> on Monday. At issue is the fact that Spotify \u2014 which has already locked in deals with the other two major labels, Universal and Sony, in the country \u2014 hasn\u2019t yet secured licenses for Warner\u2019s music, but tried to get a statutory license (a type of license applied automatically, usually used by TV broadcasters and radio stations) to cover songwriting rights. According to a statement from Warner, Spotify \u201cfalsely asserted\u201d the statutory license. But in Spotify\u2019s version of events, Warner is engaging in \u201cabusive behavior\u201d and \u201crevoked a previously agreed-upon publishing license for reasons wholly unrelated to Spotify\u2019s launch in India.\u201d<\/p>\n

Things between the two devolved further: Spotify said on Monday afternoon that the local court had denied Warner\u2019s request for an injunction, telling Music Business Worldwide<\/a> that it is \u201cpleased with today\u2019s outcome\u201d and \u201chopeful for a negotiated solution with Warner based on market rates.\u201d Warner then called Spotify\u2019s statement a complete lie<\/a>, and added that \u201cSpotify\u2019s comments yesterday about our fair market negotiations were appalling to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet on Tuesday, rumors began flying again that Spotify will<\/em> launch in India this week,<\/a> because the court did decline Warner\u2019s emergency injunction, according to MBW. The price point has been revealed as roughly $1.67 a month, which is the same amount charged by rival service Apple Music in India.<\/p>\n

Where does that leave Spotify\u2019s relationship with Warner \u2014 or with the record business in general \u2014 if it does launch now? With the injunction blocked, Spotify and Warner are now in a four-week standstill in which the court will review the legality of of a statutory license. It\u2019s not yet clear whether Spotify would be violating the terms of the holding period if it launches with Warner\u2019s catalog, which includes the likes of Katy Perry and Led Zeppelin.<\/p>\n

But regardless of what happens with Warner, the streaming service\u2019s launch in India will be clouded with the dispute. Spotify and the major record labels have publicly butted heads repeatedly over licensing issues in the last few years, whether because Spotify was expanding to new territories, adding different content to its service, trying to negotiate more favorable payment deals, changing up its distribution strategy<\/a> or otherwise tweaking its business \u2014 a trend that speaks to both Spotify\u2019s escalating power and ambition in the music world. The harshness of language between Spotify and Warner in the India dispute is unusual; the fight itself is not.<\/p>\n

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

Spotify really, really wants to launch in India. The streaming company has been staffing up an office in Mumbai for a year, and finally suggested in website updates recently, after deflecting rumors for months, that January 31st would be the date it rolled out to 1.3 billion potential new customers. But that date came and […]<\/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":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2441051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 15:48:21","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2441051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2441051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2441051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2441051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}