Category: Spotify

Universal Music Group (UMG), the world leader in music-based entertainment, and Spotify, today announced new, multi-year agreements for Recorded Music and Music Publishing focused on growth, innovation, and the advancement of artists’ and songwriters’ success.

“When we first presented our vision for the next stage in the evolution of music subscription several months ago—Steaming 2.0—this is precisely the kind of partnership development we envisioned,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO, Universal Music Group. “This agreement furthers and broadens the collaboration with Spotify for both our labels and music publisher, advancing artist-centric principles to drive greater monetization for artists and songwriters, as well as enhancing product offerings for consumers.”

“For nearly two decades, Spotify has made good on its commitment to return the music industry to growth, ensuring that we deliver record payouts to the benefit of artists and songwriters each new year,” said Daniel Ek, Spotify’s Founder and CEO. “This partnership ensures we can continue to deliver on this promise by embracing the certainty that constant innovation is key to making paid music subscriptions even more attractive to a broader audience of fans around the world.”

Under the new agreements, UMG and Spotify will collaborate closely to advance the next era of streaming innovation. Artists, songwriters and consumers will benefit from new and evolving offers, new paid subscription tiers, bundling of music and non-music content, and a richer audio and visual content catalog. By deepening audience experiences, driving further engagement and amplifying the connection between artists, songwriters and their fans, the collaboration between these two companies will position the industry for continued subscriber growth and retention.

The new publishing agreement also establishes a direct license between Spotify and Universal Music Publishing Group across Spotify’s current product portfolio in the U.S. and several other countries, which reinforces a mutually beneficial relationship for songwriters on the platform.

Finally, the new agreements renew the companies’ commitment to artist-centric principles, ensuring that artists continue to be properly rewarded for the share of audience engagement that they drive and that their streaming royalties remain protected through the platforms’ application of its fraud detection and enforcement systems.

Quick pulse check: What are your mood, your inspiration, and your mindset as you kick off 2025? Do they match your feelings from a year ago?

Two years ago we introduced “Playlist in a Bottle,” giving listeners a chance to capture the songs that resonated with them at that moment in time and seal them away for one year. The interactive in-app experience is the perfect time capsule to remember and reflect on the music you loved and how your taste may have evolved over the past 365 days. If you’re one of the Spotify listeners who participated in January 2024, today is the day to unlock your “Playlist in a Bottle” from last year.

Here’s how
Visit spotify.com/playlistinabottle on your mobile device.
Choose “Claim Your Playlist” to see which songs were sealed in your musical time capsule.
Save and listen to your complete 2024 Playlist in a Bottle. You only have until January 31!
Playlist in a Bottle is available in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, U.K., UAE, U.S., and Vietnam.

And you can find Playlist in a Bottle in the following languages: English, English-GB, Portuguese, Portuguese-BR, French-CA, Spanish-LATAM, Dutch, German, French, Italian, Polish, Spanish-ES, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese-Traditional, Korean, and Bahasa Indonesia.

Spotify remains the ultimate destination for podcast creators, with more than 1 billion people having listened to a podcast on Spotify since we entered the space in 2019. And for the first time, we’re introducing the Spotify Creator Milestone Award to recognize the journey, growth, and streaming success of podcasts around the world.

Evaluated quarterly, the Creator Milestone Award will be given to podcasts that reach certain streaming thresholds on Spotify—100 million streams, 250 million streams, and 500 million streams—setting a new standard for podcast achievement and honoring the many record-setting shows on our platform.