On Tuesday, an appeal by Amazon, Google, Pandora and Spotify that seeks to overturn the Copyright Royalty Board’s 2018 decision to raise by 44% the royalties paid to songwriters by streaming services will come before the U.S.
Court of Appeals. Attorneys for Amazon and Spotify will make their cases Tuesday (the four companies filed their appeals separately); notable by its absence from the appeal is Apple Music, the world’s second-largest streaming service.
Tensions have been high since the appeal was made last March: The publishing community is understandably up in arms over this threat to a hard-won rate increase, while the streaming giants insist that they are not “suing songwriters,” which is how the appeal is often characterized.
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