Rockfreaks.net

Victory Records’ entire catalogue of music was pulled from Spotify last night as a result of unpaid royalties worth $23,000 to the label for some 2,200 of its songs. Billboard has a report on the matter, while Victory Records itself has issued the following press release:

Victory Records' catalog of music was pulled from Spotify last night as a result of Spotify not properly paying publishing revenues due to Victory Records' artists in blatant violation of US Copyright laws. Spotify also pulled down a very large number of albums that Victory is not the publisher for proving that their internal systems are inadequate. We asked that our catalog not be pulled, that we would amicably work with Spotify, and they haphazardly removed our content regardless. 53,000,000 streams, as per Spotify's statements, were identified with no publishing royalties being paid by Spotify.

 

Late yesterday, Spotify sent over a document giving them mechanical clearance to use our music. We could not sign said document for a variety of reasons, most importantly, that it would put us in direct violation of our agreement with Audiam (www.audiam.com). Spotify knows we are in business with Audiam and were essentially asking us to breach/ignore that agreement. The issue of nonpayment for songwriters and composers is a widespread problem and not exclusive to Victory Records' artists. We understand your frustration with not being able to listen to the music you enjoy (and most pay for via subscription).

 

The bottom line is that artists and songwriters are not being paid and fans of Victory's artists cannot listen to the music.

 

Thank you for your support and we remain hopeful that Spotify will do the right thing.