Sofia Benavides
(CNN Spanish) – The audio streaming platform Spotify announced that it will gradually stop providing its service in Uruguay starting in January 2024 and until it ceases completely in February, given the recent modifications on copyright in the South American country’s legislation. .
In October, the Uruguayan Parliament approved a law that enables artists to directly claim compensation from digital platforms for the reproduction of their works.
“(Spotify) will unfortunately begin phasing out its service in Uruguay starting January 1, 2024, and will completely cease service in February, to the detriment of artists and fans (…due to) the lack of clarity about the changes in the copyright laws included in the Accountability Law of 2023,” he indicated in a statement released this Monday in the Uruguayan press.
Spotify added that it “already pays about 70% of every dollar it generates from music to record labels and publishers, who own the rights to the music, and who represent and pay artists and songwriters. “Any additional payment would make our business unsustainable.”
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During the debate on the law in question, Spotify had anticipated that approval would force them to stop operating in Uruguay.
Articles 329 and 330 approved in the 2023 Accountability Report in Uruguay establish that “the internet or digital networks of any type” are some of the ways in which artists and performers can “demand compensation” for the dissemination and reproduction of their work. .
When this law was being discussed in Parliament, the Uruguayan Society of Interpreters (Sudei) argued that the changes were to update “the existing rules so that the related rights of interpreters generated on digital platforms are enshrined in our legislation, through mechanisms that allow your application”.
For Sudei, digital music left “artists, performers and performers in a situation of great harm and therefore vulnerability in terms of the payment of their royalties.” “Currently, in our country, the uses of music on digital platforms, corresponding to performers and music producers, are charged exclusively by the music producers, not by the performers, generating a situation of inequality and lack of justice,” he added.
The-CNN-Wire
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