The American Association of Independent Music, whose artists include Mumford & Sons, Taylor Swift and Adele, argues that Universal and Sony — a de facto “duopoly”— grab a disproportionate share of streaming music royalties because of their distribution clout.
The group, which represents around 325 indie labels in the US, has been lobbying lawmakers to take a fresh look at music licensing and outlined its issues in a filing submitted to the federal Copyright Office last week.
A2IM contends that the streaming music business is essentially a zero-sum game: The music majors use their distribution muscle to extract the lion’s share of dollars from services such as Spotify and Pandora, leaving the indie labels to settle for whatever is left.
The group, run by Rich Bengloff, claims indie labels represent the biggest US market share, or 34.6 percent, based on music copyright ownership. But No. 1 Universal pockets the biggest paychecks because it claims a “fallacious” 38.9 percent market share on a distribution basis, the group argues in the filing.
With streaming music services exploding in popularity, digital music now accounts for 60 percent of the US music market – making it even more crucial that all copyright owners are treated fairly, the group said in the filing.
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