TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Spotify to increase prices in France over new tax
The government last year decided, starting from this year, to slap a 1.2 percent tax on the revenue streaming companies make in France to help finance music creation.
Change Size
The company logo of Swedish music streaming giant Spotify is pictured on a smartphone in Berlin on January 23, 2023. (AFP/Tobias Schwarz)
S
wedish streaming service Spotify on Thursday said it would increase its prices in France due to a new tax, which it argued would fail to accomplish its intended goal.
The government last year decided, starting from this year, to slap a 1.2 percent tax on the revenue streaming companies make in France to help finance music creation.
"While Spotify worked very hard to encourage the government to avoid adding this tax, unfortunately they decided to move forward," the Swedish group said in a statement.
"To put it bluntly, all French users will see their subscription plan fee go up. French users will now pay the highest subscriptions across the European Union."
It said it would announce the extent of the price increase at a later stage.
In its statement, Spotify said the tax was misguided and would not help music creation.
"It will simply come at the expense of listeners and create an additional middleman: the CNM," it said, referring to France's National Music Centre.
The tax, which the government hopes will raise about 15 million euros ($16.35 million) this year, will contribute to CNM's support for the music industry, including helping emerging artists and French artists trying to break through abroad, the government has said.
The head of the CNM, Jean-Philippe Thiellay, has rejected Spotify's criticism.
The tax "will not finance the CNM, whose operations are ensured by the state, but it will finance creation and diversity," he told France Musique radio in an interview last year. "100 percent of this tax will be re-injected into the sector."
