If you write songs or publish them, the next five years of US streaming pay are being argued right now. In Phonorecords V, the Copyright Royalty Board will set the mechanical rates on-demand services pay songwriters and publishers from 2028 through 2032. Services filed their proposals on October 5, with public versions out on October 7, and the gap between what platforms want and what publishers want is wide enough to matter for every independent release that lands on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, or Pandora.
What Spotify, Apple and Amazon asked for
Spotify, Apple, Google, and Pandora all want the current Phonorecords IV deal kept in place. That means the 15.35% headline rate that arrives in 2027 would run flat through 2032, with no other changes to the Section 115 rules those four companies care about most. Amazon went the other way. It proposes cutting the headline rate to 13.4% for non-bundle services, trimming Total Content Cost percentages, and lowering per-subscriber floors. For bundles, Amazon wants the percentage-of-revenue prong removed entirely and lower TCC rates instead.
Bundling is the real flashpoint. After Spotify reclassified US Premium tiers as music-plus-audiobook bundles in March 2024, and Amazon followed with a similar move in November 2024, publishers say mechanicals took a hit. Music Business Worldwide reports the publishers' filing claims Spotify has already taken more than $500 million in mechanical royalties that should have gone to songwriters and publishers. Spotify's own quarterly filing says that if the Mechanical Licensing Collective won completely, liability from March 2024 through June 2026 would be about EUR 473 million, plus possible penalties and interest, partly offset by direct deals.
What publishers and songwriters want
The National Music Publishers' Association and the Nashville Songwriters Association International, filing as the Copyright Owners, want services to pay the greatest of four amounts: 20% of revenue, 40% of what services pay record labels, $2.40 per subscriber a month, or $0.004 per play. They also want tighter anti-bundling rules so a subscriber cannot be moved into a bundle in a way that cuts royalties, and they want listening data tied to each play available to the song owner on request.
NMPA president David Israelite has argued songwriters should get at least 40% of what labels and artists receive in a free-market negotiation. Labels license recordings directly. Songwriters still lean on the compulsory mechanical license the CRB sets, unless a publisher has a direct deal. Spotify has been signing those direct US publishing deals since January 2025 with Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell, Kobalt, Sony Music Publishing, and BMG.
What happens next
Amended written direct statements can land through December 21. Responses are due February 1, 2027. Settlement talks are penciled for late January into mid-February 2027. If nobody settles, the hearing is set for March 22 to April 15, 2027, with an initial decision due by December 17, 2027. Digital Media Association said on October 6 that it looks forward to a timely resolution. Nobody serious expects this to feel timely if it goes the distance.
For independent artists, the takeaway is practical. Headline rates and bundle rules shape the songwriter side of every stream, even when your focus is the recording. Keep your splits clean, register works properly, and treat distribution as infrastructure rather than an afterthought. DistroKid remains a straightforward way to get releases onto the services fighting this case, and you can get 7% off your membership through this DistroKid link.
Do you follow mechanical rate fights like this, or do you mostly watch the recording-royalty side of streaming?
