I write today to ensure you’ve heard the good news that the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) issued its Final Determination upholding the rate increases in the Phonorecords III case. This covers on-demand digital streaming royalties for the years 2018-2022.

We expect these escalating topline revenue rate increases to result in more royalties paid to songwriters and publishers. This is in addition to the topline revenue royalty rate increase resulting from the settlement between the DSPs and Publishers for 2023-2027 in the Phonorecords IV case. Under the Phonorecords IV settlement, topline revenue royalty rates increased are increasing gradually from 15.1% to 15.35%.

As a long-time champion of songwriters’ rights and protections, we are pleased with this result, but of course there remains work to do. We are fully committed to driving continued progress to ensure that songwriters are fairly compensated, and that your immense value is recognized.

As a next step on Phonorecords III, DSPs have six months to true-up their accountings under the now-finalized Phonorecords III rates. Outstanding payments by DSPs are due to the Mechanical Licensing Collective by February 2024. The MLC then needs several months to process after which this is then paid back to songwriters, rightsholders and publishers. UMPG clients can expect to see these adjusted accountings begin to flow through in the second half of 2024. This process will be managed by our dedicated North American/Global Administration team which is already working closely with all parties involved to ensure seamlessness and accuracy.

We will continue to update you as the process progresses. Up-to-date accountings for our songwriters, rightsholder and clients are available in UMPG Window.

As always, thank you for trusting our global UMPG team. We are deeply privileged to support you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.

John Reston
Executive Vice President, Global Administration
Universal Music Publishing Group