Spotify, UMG Sign New Global Licensing Deal

Spotify and Universal Music Group (UMG) Wednesday announced a new, multi-year global license agreement.

Spotify and Warner Music Group announced a new global licensing agreement in April. Indie licensor Merlin also completed a new deal earlier this year.

The status of Spotify’s deal with Sony is less clear with sources suggesting that there are still several months left in their previous agreement.

Details of the deal are scant beyond the usual boilerplate statements.

UMG did pledge to deepen its role “as an early adopter of future products and provide valuable feedback to Spotify’s development team” including Marquee, Spotify’s first offering in its much touted two-sided marketplace of paid tools and services as well as Canvas looped video graphics.

Full statements from both top executives:

Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, said, “With this agreement, UMG and Spotify are more aligned than ever in our commitment to ensuring the entire music ecosystem thrives and reaches new audiences around the globe. Given our commitment to innovation and early adoption of music technologies, and Spotify’s leadership in the development of forward-thinking tools, our new partnership will provide our artists with new and powerful opportunities to connect with fans on Spotify’s growing platform. Working together, our teams will expand and accelerate our collaborative efforts to deliver artist-focused initiatives, strategic marketing campaigns and new offerings to provide exciting new experiences for fans worldwide.”

Daniel Ek, Chairman & CEO of Spotify, said, “From their early experimentation with Marquee, to testing new experiences like Canvas, Universal Music Group has been an important partner in helping to shape the development of our marketing tools. With today’s announcement, we will expand on this level of early stage innovation and further strengthen our partnership and shared vision for helping advance artists at all stages of their careers. We’ve said all along, the goal of our Marketplace strategy is to harness Spotify’s ability to connect artists with fans on a scale that has never before existed and bring new opportunities to the industry. Together, we look forward to reinvesting in and building new tools and offerings for artists around the world.”