Battle Royal(ties): Steaming services to challenge royalty rate increase

The battle over royalties between songwriters and music streaming services rages on. Following the songwriters' victory - the Copyright Royalty Board granted them a 15.1% share of streaming revenues over the next five years, a raise from the previous rate of 10.5% - the streaming services will now appeal the ruling.

According to the streaming services, Spotify, Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Sirius XM Holdings Inc.'s Pandora, this change will make it harder to operate, adding that the ruling was made without enough input from them.

The rates under discussion, in this case, govern payments from on-demand services such as Spotify and Apple Music, which make up the vast majority of streaming sales.

Read more at The Daily Maverick.