Phonorecords V: what Spotify, Apple and Amazon want to pay songwriters for 2028 to 2032

The rate case that decides what US streaming services pay songwriters from 2028 to 2032 has reached its first real deadline. The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) told participants in Phonorecords V to file their written direct statements, their opening rate cases, by 5 October 2026. The gap between the two sides is wide. Music Business Worldwide, which went through the redacted filings, reports that publishers want a 20% headline rate. Most of the services want to stay at 15.35%, and Amazon wants less.

What does each side want?

The baseline is the 2022 Phonorecords IV settlement. Under the current regulation, the headline rate climbs from 15.1% of service revenue in 2023 to 15.35% in 2027. Standalone portable subscriptions are also tested against 26.2% of total content cost (TCC, broadly what a service pays labels) or $1.10 per subscriber. Bundled subscriptions pay 24.5% of TCC.

According to MBW:

• NMPA and NSAI (filing together as the "Copyright Owners") want the greatest of 20% of revenue, 40% of TCC, $2.40 per subscriber or $0.004 per play, with the fixed amounts rising with inflation each year. They would end the family and student plan discounts and the zero-rated free trials. They would also require each part of a bundle to be sold separately at a real market price.
• Spotify wants every 2027 term, including 15.35%, carried over unchanged, with no inflation adjustment. It argues the bundle terms were part of a package deal that can't be reopened piece by piece.
• Apple also wants 15.35%. Its economist argues that a percentage-of-revenue rate already rises with prices.
• Google (YouTube) wants 15.35% too, plus an "allocation" rule that would scale royalties down to the plays the licence actually covers.
• Pandora (SiriusXM) wants the 2027 terms kept, with smaller changes such as leaving accounts used for fraud out of user counts.
• Amazon wants the headline rate cut to 13.4%, the standalone TCC rate cut from 26.2% to 22.8%, and the $1.10 per-subscriber figure cut to 96 cents. For bundles such as Amazon Music Unlimited with Audible, it wants the percentage-of-revenue prong removed and the TCC rate cut from 24.5% to 21.3%.

Bundles are the background to all of this. Spotify reclassified US Premium as an audiobook bundle in March 2024, and Amazon followed in November 2024, MBW reports. That move lowered the mechanical rate and is still being fought in court. We covered the latest ruling in Spotify's audiobook "bundle" still costs songwriters. Audible is listed as an interested third party on the CRB's case page.

The deal on CDs, vinyl and downloads

Not everything is being fought over. On 29 June the CRB received a motion for a partial settlement covering physical phonorecords, permanent downloads, ringtones and "music bundles" (in this part of the rules, a package of physical or download products, not a subscription). The settlement leaves those rules unchanged apart from the inflation adjustments that already apply to physical and download rates. The parties behind it are the NMPA, NSAI and the Music Artists Coalition on the publisher side, and Sony, UMG, Warner and A2IM on the label side. The other copyright owners in the case, the Songwriters Guild of America (SGA), Word Collections, Eight Mile Music Companies and George Johnson, are listed as having "declined to join".

SGA and Word Collections objected on 8 August, and they dispute that wording. They say they asked for detailed talks, got no substantive reply and never saw the settlement before it was filed. Their argument is about arithmetic. The regulation sets the 2026 rate at 13.1 cents per song per copy, worked out by applying inflation since November 2022 to a 12-cent base. The objectors say the 12-cent base reflected inflation only up to the end of 2020, so the 2021 to 2022 price surge was never counted. On their figures, the base should have been 13.6 cents on 1 January 2023, and a fair 2028 starting point would be about 15.6 cents. They also argue that some wording in the settlement could reset the 2028 rate to 12 cents, though they allow that this may be a drafting error.

Labels pay physical and download mechanicals, and the same groups own the largest publishers that receive them. In Phonorecords IV the judges said that vertical integration "raises a warning flag", a line the objectors quote back at them.

What happens next?

MBW reports that amended statements can be filed until 21 December 2026 and rebuttals are due by 1 February 2027. A settlement window runs from 25 January to 15 February 2027, hearings are scheduled from 22 March to 15 April 2027 unless the parties settle, and the judges' initial decision is due by 17 December 2027. The CRB lists the case as being in discovery.

What we think

The headline numbers are the easy part. On our arithmetic, the publishers' 20% would be about 30% more than 15.35%, and Amazon's 13.4% would be about 13% less. Neither side expects to get exactly what it asked for. Inflation is where writers lose quietly. The percentage prongs rise when Spotify raises its prices, as Apple says. The fixed protections don't: the $1.10 and 60-cent per-subscriber figures and the 33-cent bundle floor are set in nominal cents. MBW reports that Spotify's own economist puts US inflation from June 2022 to June 2026 at about 13%. On that estimate, freezing those floors until 2032 cuts their real value by at least that much. And the floors matter most in the cheap, discounted and bundled plans where writers are already paid least.

Bundles are the real issue, not the headline rate. A 20% rate means little if a growing share of subscribers sit in bundles, and Spotify wants the bundle terms protected as part of the "package". The publishers' demand that each part of a bundle carry a real market price is the most important line in their filing, and it matters more to independent writers than the headline rate does. MBW reports that UMPG, Warner Chappell, Kobalt, Sony Music Publishing and BMG have all signed direct US deals with Spotify since January 2025. Writers at those companies have some protection, while writers who rely on the statutory rate don't.

The physical and download fight looks small in a streaming market, but it shows who gets to negotiate. Those rates were decided by labels, which pay them, and by trade groups whose largest members are those labels' sister publishers, while the guild that represents unaffiliated writers says it never saw the text. Our reading of the formula is that it keeps compounding from November 2022, so a drop all the way to 12 cents looks unlikely. The lost 2021 to 2022 inflation is a different matter. It is permanent, and every later adjustment compounds from the lower base. The judges rejected a frozen-rate settlement in Phonorecords IV. They should require the settling parties to explain, on the record, why two years of inflation is left out, before they bind writers who weren't at the table.

Sources

• Phonorecords V, notice of proposed settlement, 91 FR 42698, Copyright Royalty Board, 10 Jul 2026
• Independent Music Creators (SGA and Word Collections): objection to proposed Subpart B settlement, eCRB, 8 Aug 2026
• Case details: Phonorecords V, 25-CRB-0013-PR (2028-2032), eCRB
• 37 CFR Part 385, eCFR
• Here's exactly what Amazon, Spotify, Apple and other streaming services want to pay songwriters for 2028-2032, Music Business Worldwide, 14 Oct 2026