Alexandria Mueller, Entertainment Law attorney at Hellmuth & Johnson, was interviewed on the WCCO Radio show Steel Talkin’ with Jearlyn Steele. Mueller shared her insights regarding Spotify and the various ways it, and platforms like it, pay entertainers and producers of content. She also discussed how the music industry tries to determine the value music in the age of the internet, the Music Modernization Act, and other copyright issues currently facing the music industry.
“Spotifiy is an example of an interactive digital service provider – so they are responsible to pay performance royalties to the writers and to the publishers. They are responsible to pay Sound Exchange the digital performance royalty; that goes to the record label and the musicians and the artists that perform on the performance [recording] side. And they are also responsible to pay what’s called mechanical licensing. And that was the piece that went back and was smoothed over with the Music Modernization Act because that was the royalty that was getting missed most of the time by these internet providers.”