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submitted 7 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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

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[-] Mahlzeit@feddit.de 60 points 7 months ago

After reading the whole article, I still don't know what Uruguay wants to happen.

[-] Shazbot@lemmy.world 60 points 7 months 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.de 22 points 7 months 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.ca 12 points 7 months ago

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

[-] brunox@feddit.cl 2 points 7 months ago

AGADU is the society of authors. Kind of an union (it's not an union but sort of). It's suppossed role is defending the rights of authors

[-] Mahlzeit@feddit.de 1 points 7 months 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.

[-] vin@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 7 months ago

How does this work for international performers though?

[-] Corgana@startrek.website 20 points 7 months ago

I mean, it sounds like they want their artists to recieve fair compensation.

[-] Mahlzeit@feddit.de 1 points 7 months ago

I see that not everyone's a cynic, yet.

What does that mean, though?

[-] raptir@lemdro.id 12 points 7 months ago

And that's exactly why Spotify is leaving.

[-] Tom_bishop@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Spotify already paid rights holder (...the record labels, which is the one supposed to pay the artists). Under the new law, its ill defined which could make spotify pay to artists on top of paying the record labels, thus double the pay.

[-] jayrodtheoldbod@midwest.social 49 points 7 months ago

Oh well, I suppose everyone will lay down and die with no access to music. What will artists do without that all important half a peso for 5000 streams?

Cash money says there's already a native competitor just waiting to get that money. If not there will be soon. Maybe people will just buy records again, shit. Uruguay isn't doing half bad, financially, maybe they'll bring tapes back.

It has been quite something to see American tech companies rolling out across the world trying to pull that same old "sign the EULA or lose everything" bullshit and it's just not working for them. Too bad we can't kick them in the dick like other nations can.

[-] Mahlzeit@feddit.de 25 points 7 months ago

Spotify is Swedish.

[-] brunox@feddit.cl 7 points 7 months ago

Cash money says there’s already a native competitor just waiting to get that money

There isn't and probably won't be. At least not one with a library even half a size to that of spotify. People will probably flock to some competition like apple music or youtube music (neither of those services, as they are not very popular, seem to have said anything about this copyright law amendment). Also a senator already pointed out that if you have a valid argentinian credit card (there's one very easy to get here), you can just register as an argentinian and pay less than a dollar instead of the seven dollars it costs here as a turnaround.

[-] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

We can... We're just too busy arguing over immigration, what gay/trans people and women are allowed to do, where the line is between church and state, and to what extent guns should be a part of our society... Oh and Trump.

[-] MaxPow3r11@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago

So they admitted here that they don't pay artists fairly.

Fuck Daniel Ek.

[-] nicholasio@lemmy.world 19 points 7 months ago
[-] phillycodehound@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

Big Tech = Evil Tech

[-] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

Good on the Uruguayan Parliament. For profit companies understand one thing, money. If enough people would understand this and be willing to deal with some inconvenience, companies like Spotify would come around surprisingly fast.

[-] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 3 points 7 months ago

See, this is one of the reasons why I haven't listened to music in almost a decade. Paying fairly to artists is provably unaffordable for the average joe, unless a shady workaround like the streaming service subscription exists (and even then, that barely fills the belly of the artists that dedicate exclusively to art).

[-] long_chicken_boat@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago

Physical records make good money for the artists, if it weren't for the greedy discographies of course.

[-] some_guy 1 points 7 months ago

That's a pretty silly statement. I still have all the CDs I bought before streaming and they're stored in boxes in a closet because they're all ripped to my computer. Why wouldn't you listen to music? It's one of our (as a species) greatest creations.

[-] sennheisenberg 1 points 7 months ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the biggest issue that the music publishers share very little of the Spotify revenue with the artists? They seem like unnecessary middle-men, yet they take a huge cut.

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this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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