The NMPA is officially taking aim at alleged infringement in podcasts available via Spotify. Photo Credit: NMPA
After pledging an “all-encompassing” response to Spotify’s bundling craze, the NMPA has fired off north of 2,500 “detections of infringement” concerning on-platform podcasts.
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) reached out with a formal announcement about the move today. Probably not coincidentally, the publisher representative disclosed the maneuver on the same day that Spotify posted strong Q4 2024 earnings (and hit a record stock price to boot).
But as mentioned, the NMPA’s pledge – and the underlying dispute – isn’t new. After Spotify unilaterally classified the vast majority of its U.S. subscriptions as bundles (and began reaping massive compositional royalty savings as a result), May 2024 saw the NMPA criticize various practices, extending but not confined to podcasts, in a cease-and-desist letter.
“It has come to our attention that Spotify displays lyrics and reproduces and distributes music videos and podcasts using musical works without the consent of or compensation to the respective publishers and administrators (our members) who control the copyrights in the musical compositions,” the NMPA spelled out.
Nearly nine months later – and following the January 2025 dismissal of an MLC lawsuit challenging Spotify’s bundling reclassifications – push has evidently come to shove for the NMPA.
According to the entity, the “ongoing takedown initiative,” levied on behalf of 19 member publishers (including the majors’ publishing arms), is targeting an initial 2,500 or so instances of alleged infringement in podcasts. And the “demands will continue” from here, per the NMPA.
In a statement, NMPA president and CEO David Israelite emphasized that the “takedown action comes as no surprise” in light of the above-described letter and other warnings. Israelite also called on podcast hosts to “stand up for their fellow creators and demand that Spotify do better.”
And unsurprisingly, the NMPA head concluded by drawing attention to Spotify’s bundling extravaganza, royalty savings from which have now topped $100 million.
“Spotify will stop at nothing to undervalue songwriters on behalf of its bottom line,” Israelite finished. “Look no further than its recent bundling scheme and its ill-conceived appeal of songwriters’ rate increase in CRB III. We will not stop until the platform fixes its podcast problem, and all other areas where songwriters are not earning what they deserve.”
On the opposite side of the ugly confrontation, Spotify downplayed the NMPA’s takedown efforts as “a weak reaction” to the aforesaid MLC suit’s dismissal.
“This is a weak reaction to the judge dismissing the MLC’s lawsuit,” a Spotify spokesperson told DMN. “Last summer, the NMPA claimed that there were unlicensed works in podcasts on Spotify. The fact that the NMPA waited months, despite multiple written requests by Spotify for details, which they never bothered to answer, to report these episodes only further emphasizes that this is a press stunt.
“Platforms like Spotify, which are home to millions of pieces of UGC content, regularly receive takedown requests, and, as always, we will act promptly and, where appropriate, remove the episodes in question,” the rep proceeded.
While time will tell exactly how far the battle goes during the rest of 2025, the NMPA doesn’t seem to lack additional infringement-notice options on the podcast side.
We’ve highlighted some of those options (which, on the recording front, are evidently not too big a worry to the major labels) in related coverage.
Just scratching the surface, generic podcast-category searches on Spotify turn up music-heavy TikTok video compilations, more than a few mixtapes, song-equipped television episodes made available (seemingly without rightsholder authorization) by third parties, concert renditions of ultra-popular tracks, and a whole lot else.