The opening bids in Phonorecords V, the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board case that sets what streaming services pay for songs from 2028 to 2032, were filed on October 5, 2026. A songwriter coalition asked for a flat $0.0030 per stream. Spotify asked for no change at all.
Between those poles sit the big publishers, who want a higher and more layered formula, and Amazon, which wants rates cut. None of these numbers is a rate yet. They are proposals, filed as written direct statements on the public CRB docket. Absent a settlement, a hearing is scheduled to begin March 22, 2027, with the judges’ initial determination due by December 17, 2027, according to Music Business Worldwide.
What does a songwriter earn per stream today?
Less than most fans would guess, and it depends on which app played the song. Under the current Phonorecords IV terms, streaming mechanicals are a percentage of each service’s revenue with backstops, and the headline rate climbs to 15.35% in 2027. Divide what a service pays by the plays it reports and you get an effective per-stream rate. The songwriter coalition did that math from the Mechanical Licensing Collective’s own rate sheets:
| Service (paid individual tier) | Mechanical royalty per stream, June 2026 |
|---|---|
| Spotify Premium | $0.000392 |
| YouTube Music Premium | $0.000662 |
| Apple Music Individual | $0.001079 |
| Tidal HiFi | $0.001376 |
| Amazon Music Unlimited | $0.001523 |
That is the mechanical side only, the whole pot for a song’s writers and publishers combined, before anyone’s split. Performance royalties travel separately, through performing rights organizations.
Same song, same month, both paid tiers: an Amazon Music Unlimited stream generated 3.9 times the mechanicals of a Spotify Premium stream.
Why did Spotify’s audiobook bundle matter?
Because the Phonorecords IV settlement lets bundles pay less. In March 2024, Spotify added 15 hours of monthly audiobook listening to Premium and began reporting it as a bundle. The coalition’s filing shows the one-month swing: Premium plays rose 1.4% from February to March 2024, but reported service revenue fell 42.3%, the payable mechanical pool dropped from $15.78 million to $9.06 million, and the per-stream rate fell 43.4%, from $0.000844 to $0.000478.
The publishers’ filing puts the reduction in reported royalties from Spotify’s “bundle ploy” at over $500 million as of June 30, 2026. The Mechanical Licensing Collective sued in 2024 and that case is still alive, which is why bundling sits at the center of this proceeding.
What is each side proposing for 2028 to 2032?
| Who filed | Proposal |
|---|---|
| Songwriters Guild of America, Music Artists Coalition, Word Collections, Eight Mile, George Johnson | $0.0030 per stream, mechanical only, in 2028, then yearly cost-of-living increases; a minimum of $1.05 per active subscriber per month |
| NMPA and NSAI (“Copyright Owners”) | The greatest of 20% of revenue, 40% of label payments, $0.004 per play or $2.40 per subscriber, an all-in pool with performance royalties then subtracted |
| Spotify, Apple, Pandora | Keep the 15.35% revenue rate for all five years |
| No change to the Phonorecords IV rates | |
| Amazon | Cuts of about 13%: 13.4% of revenue for standalone services, 21.3% of label payments for bundles |
The two songwriter-side figures are not the same thing. The coalition’s $0.0030 is mechanical only and stands alone. The publishers’ $0.004 is one of four prongs, counted before performance royalties come out. Bernie Taupin, who filed testimony backing the flat rate, made the case for simplicity:
When songs are streamed, songwriters deserve clarity on how that stream shows up on their royalty statements.Bernie Taupin, CRB testimony quoted by Digital Music News
The services’ trade group, DiMA, did not address the proposals directly. Its CEO, Graham Davies, cited NMPA figures showing U.S. publishing revenue grew from $5.6 billion in 2022 to $7.3 billion in 2025, and said DiMA looks forward “to a timely resolution of this proceeding.”
What it means for independent writers
For a self-published writer, the formula is the paycheck. The MLC pays self-administered songwriters directly, so a change in how a service books its revenue lands on the statement with no publisher advance to soften it. That is the same squeeze independent artists already feel on the recording side.
The arithmetic is blunt. For a song a writer fully owns, 1 million Spotify Premium streams at the June 2026 effective rate come to about $392 in mechanicals. At the proposed $0.0030, the same streams would generate $3,000. Even the hit-makers, the Songwriter of the Year class, split that across co-writers and publishers. Amazon’s own filing acknowledges criticism that the current structure is “overly complicated and challenging to administer,” then argues to keep it. Discovery is open now; the next filings will show whether anyone moves.