Kobalt’s AMRA announced a new royalty collections deal with YouTube last week, and boss Willard Ahdritz is making no bones about having traditional collecting societies squarely in his sights.
“We hear all of this bad-mouthing of Spotify and YouTube, all of this talk of collection societies ‘fighting for artists and writers’ – and that apparently no money’s coming out. Hmm. Let’s talk facts. For the first time I really feel big support from the senior management of the biggest tech companies,” he told Music Business Worldwide.
“They want people to see they’re transparent; they want [artists and songwriters] to be paid and see the money they’re paying out. These companies are proud of telling the world what they’ve paid music rights-holders. Isn’t it interesting that the opposite is true of those organisations who don’t want to tell us their [cost] rates? Those who don’t want to be transparent?”
Consider battle joined once again.
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