Fresh from adding an ‘HD’ tier to its Music Unlimited streaming service, Amazon appears to be preparing to add another element in to the mix: music videos. At least, that’s the gist of a ‘direct license amendment’ sent to licensors on behalf of Amazon by rights-management firm Music Reports.
The email, which Music Ally has seen, claims that “in addition to its full catalog of audio content, Amazon is excited to offer customers that subscribe to the Service access to view music videos (where available) in addition to their favorite audio tracks, later this year”. The email went on to stress that the videos “will not include user-generated content”, and outlined some details on how the royalties will work for compositions (i.e. songwriters). “Royalties for audio and music video will be calculated using the then-current statutory rate structure; however, a 35% uplift will be applied specifically to music video plays, which will be incremental to the payable royalty pool,” explained the email.
An advance pool of $8m is being made available, on a pro-rata basis based on usage of compositions in 2019, for licensors who sign up by the end of the year.
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