Amazon Music Seeks Lower Songwriter Rates For 2028

Amazon Music asked federal royalty judges to cut songwriter rates for 2028 through 2032, drawing sharp criticism from the National Music Publishers’ Association.

The company sought a 13.4% revenue rate for standalone and ad-supported music services. Existing rules set that figure at 15.3% for 2026 and 15.35% for 2027.

NMPA President and CEO David Israelite attacked the request in a video reported by Digital Music News on October 15.

“They want to significantly decrease your rates across the board, in every category,” he said.

Amazon’s filing argued that publishers and record labels had gained market power since the last rate deal. The company said its economist, Leslie Marx, adjusted the old rates to account for that shift.

“Her calculations, in total, yield rates that are about 13% below Phonorecords IV levels,” Amazon attorney Joshua D. Branson and his co-counsel wrote.

The fight concerns what songwriters and publishers earn when people stream their songs. Under current rules, services first calculate a pool that covers both mechanical and performance royalties. They subtract performance payments, then check the amount left against a minimum payment. The mechanical pool is divided among songs based on their plays.

Amazon sought a separate change for bundled subscriptions, including its music-and-Audible plan. It asked to remove the revenue-percentage calculation for those bundles. Instead, the calculation would use 21.3% of total content costs, tied to recording-rights payments, down from 24.5%. The mechanical minimum would drop from 33 cents to 29 cents per active subscriber.

The NMPA and Nashville Songwriters Association International sought higher rates in their competing filing. Their plan would compare revenue, content costs, subscriber counts and song plays, then use whichever yielded the largest pool. They proposed 20% of revenue and 40% of content costs as two of those measures.

“Copyright owners contribute more, control less, and bear more of the risk,” their attorney Benjamin K. Semel and his co-counsel wrote.

The groups also wanted to limit performance deductions so at least half the combined pool remained for mechanical royalties.

Those payments have mattered to artists and publishers alike. India Arie linked improved songwriter royalties to her decision to return her music to Spotify in 2023 after a year-long protest.

The proposals remained before the Copyright Royalty Board in its Phonorecords V case. Its October 2 schedule allowed amended filings through December 21 and set a hearing for March 22 through April 15, 2027.