{"id":24550,"date":"2026-10-29T17:36:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T17:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interspacemusic.com\/blog\/access-to-rate-evidence-is-not-a-new-streaming-rate\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T17:36:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T17:36:20","slug":"access-to-rate-evidence-is-not-a-new-streaming-rate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interspacemusic.com\/blog\/access-to-rate-evidence-is-not-a-new-streaming-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"Access to Rate Evidence Is Not a New Streaming Rate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pandora, Spotify, Apple and Amazon can access unredacted Web VI documents for the Phono V proceeding under protective conditions<\/a>. That order changes what the services can examine in a rate-setting process. It does not tell an independent publisher what its next royalty statement will pay.<\/p>\n

What the document order changes<\/h2>\n

Chief Copyright Royalty Judge Trevor Jefferson granted the four digital service providers (DSPs) access to the Web VI documents for use in Phono V<\/a>. The immediate effect is procedural: the services can work with records that were previously unavailable to them in unredacted form, subject to the conditions attached to access. A catalogue owner should read the order as a change in the material available to participants, not as a completed change in the price of a play.<\/p>\n

That distinction matters because a rate proceeding and a royalty statement operate at different points in the chain. Participants first examine and argue over material in the proceeding. A DSP then applies the applicable payment terms when it accounts for music use. Access to a document belongs to the first step. It does not, by itself, revise the second. If a forecast changes every time evidence enters a proceeding, the forecast starts treating an argument as an outcome.<\/p>\n

The protective conditions matter too. The order allows access to unredacted documents with safeguards<\/a>, which makes the scope of access part of the ruling. It is possible to learn that a participant may inspect material without learning what that material says or how the judge will weigh it. For planning purposes, the useful date is the date a payment rule actually changes, followed by the period of use to which that rule applies.<\/p>\n

A claim is a different kind of number<\/h2>\n

Spotify\u2019s potential liability in The Mechanical Licensing Collective\u2019s (MLC) audiobook bundling lawsuit has reached roughly $619 million<\/a>. That figure describes exposure in a dispute. It is not a new per-stream rate, a distribution to publishers or a line of earned income for an individual catalogue.<\/p>\n

The bundling issue points to a separate mechanism from Phono V. A rate proceeding addresses the terms used to calculate payments. A lawsuit over bundling challenges how a service\u2019s offering is treated under payment rules. Even when both concern streaming royalties, they ask different questions: what rule applies, and whether a particular use was accounted for under it. A large aggregate claim answers neither question for a single work owner. Its size cannot be divided across a catalogue to estimate a recovery.<\/p>\n

A second Spotify case shows why the status of a claim must stay attached to its dollar figure. A US federal judge permanently dismissed RBX\u2019s $600 million lawsuit alleging that bot-driven Spotify streams reduced royalties for other rightsholders<\/a>. The allegation described a possible route by which one set of streams could affect payments to others. The dismissal ended that lawsuit without turning its stated $600 million into royalties for those rightsholders.<\/p>\n

The two figures therefore belong in different places from actual receipts. The roughly $619 million in potential MLC suit liability<\/a> remains a disputed amount. The $600 million sought in RBX\u2019s dismissed action<\/a> cannot serve as a recovery forecast from that case. Neither tells an artist or label what its own next statement will contain.<\/p>\n

Keep three entries in the catalogue model<\/h2>\n

An independent rightsholder can make this distinction operational by giving each development a different treatment in its working records:<\/p>\n