The Uruguayan Parliament approved an amendment to the country's copyright law last month

Spotify will end service in Uruguay due to bill requiring fair pay for artists:: The Uruguayan Parliament approved an amendment to the country’s copyright law last month

  • Shazbot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    601·
    1 year ago

    Found an earlier article by El Observador before the legislation passed. Under Uruguay’s old laws Spotify, YouTube, an other streaming platforms paid little to nothing in artist royalties. With the new legislation artists will now see fair compensation.

    The Guardian does a better job explaining Spotify’s problem: do the royalties come from rights holders (I am assuming they’re referring to record labels) or the streaming services? The later case they believe will cause them to pay double what they’re paying for streaming rights.

    The issue just needs to back to Uruguay’s government to sort out who pays the artist royalties, or if both labels and streaming share a proportionate responsibility.

    • Mahlzeit@feddit.deEnglish
      22·
      1 year ago

      Thanks.

      Putting the El Observador article through translate

      When a song in Uruguay is played on radio, television or at a party, the rights are collected by the General Association of Authors of Uruguay (Agadu) which retains the 60% of what is paid. The remaining 40% is divided equally between performers and record labels.

      Spotify says that it already pays for the rights. This understanding would mean that the players in Uruguay should work out how that is to be split.

      Spotify fears that the new law turns what they pay currently, simply into one share of the total, implying an extreme increase of the cost.

      • Magrath@lemmy.caEnglish
        11·
        1 year ago

        What is Agadu? Seems like a pretty high tax considering the remaining 40% go to those who made the music .

        • Mahlzeit@feddit.deEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          It’s a copyright management firm. Some countries have government-sponsored monopolists for that. This looks like one of those.

          The author of a song and the performers may not be the same (most obvious with covers). Most of the money collected by Agadu is presumably paid out to the authors/songwriters (or whoever they sold the rights to?), minus management fees. Whether the pay-out scheme is fair, may be another point of contention. Think about a live band playing covers by various authors in some bar: How is it tracked what they play, and how much should be given to each of the many different authors? I don’t know how that works in Uruguay, but my country has a system of that sort.