Universal Music Group and Spotify Strike a New Multi-Year Agreement

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.