Spotify has acquired mechanical licensing company Loudr, a move that could bring more expertise and technology into the streaming company to tackle that thorny topic. Loudr offers services to help content creators, aggregators, and music services to identify and pay mechanical royalties to publishers. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Loudr is one of a handful of companies that specialize in mechanical licensing. It will continue providing those services to other clients after the acquisition.
“What Loudr has built is more than just a smart and easy way for artists to obtain mechanical licenses; it’s true music industry innovation,” said Adam Parness, Spotify’s global head of publishing. “The Loudr team perfectly complements Spotify’s music publishing operation and, together, we believe we can continue to foster a more open, streamlined, and modern music publishing landscape.”