Spotify Pulls Entire Victory Records Catalog In Nasty Royalty Dispute

Indie label Victory Records has had its catalog of music pulled off Spotify. Victory claims that "Spotify was not properly paying publishing revenues due to Victory Records' artists in blatant violation of U.S. copyright laws."

After Spotify puled the entire Victory Record catalog off the site, the independent label issued this statement:

"Late yesterday, Spotify sent over a document giving them mechanical clearance to use our music. We could not sign said document for a variety of reasons, most importantly that it would put us in direct violation of our agreement with Audiam. Spotify knows we are in business with Audiam and were essentially asking us to breach/ignore that agreement.

The issue of nonpayment for songwriters and composers is a widespread problem and not exclusive to Victory Records' artists.

The bottom line is that artists and songwriters are not being paid and fans of Victory's artists cannot listen to the music."

A Spotify spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that they pulled the Victory Records catalog because they had not provided the data to substantiate their royalty claims. "Given that we don't have that information, we felt we had no choice but to temporarily take down their content until we can come to a resolution,"  said Spotify's representative. 

But Jeff Price of Audium, the digital royalty tracking firm hired by Victory has a different view, "Five months ago Audiam provided Spotify all the detailed songwriter information for the over 3,000 sound recordings they had not paid on… Spotify has pulled down the Victory Records sound recordings in response to us asking for them to pay for the 53 million streams." that have not yet been paid on," he continued.

Related articles

Recording Professional Quality Vocals At Home

5 Rewarding Careers to Explore With a Music Degree