2023-12-20 19:00:35
In response to the announcement of the streaming tax by the Ministry of Culture, the Swedish company will withdraw its financial support from the two cultural events. “Other measures will follow,” threatens Spotify.
The response did not take long to be felt. The streaming platform Spotify announced this Wednesday, December 20, that it would end its financial support for the French festivals of Francofolies de la Rochelle and Printemps de Bourges, from 2024. A clear response to the announcement of the “streaming tax” by the Ministry of Culture only a week earlier.
This support was not only financial, there was also no more aid “on the ground in favor of emerging artists (the Chantier des Francofolies and the iNOUïs du Printemps de Bourges)”, says Spotify France in its press release, without giving any sums for as much, nor name the infrastructures in place. For their part, the two festivals do not wish to comment on the decision taken by the Swedish giant other than with a simple “it’s their decision and we respect it”.
For the rest, Spotify ends its press release with an enigmatic “other announcements will follow in 2024”. The platform opposed this measure from the start, denouncing, like its colleagues Deezer and Apple Music, a “tax on production”. Associated with these two companies, as well as Meta, Spotify, YouTube and TikTok, Spotify pleaded instead for a voluntary contribution, further asserting on December 13 in a joint press release that they had reached an agreement to mobilize “more than 14 million ‘euros’ in 2025.
The prospect of a tax was in fact already known to them, since it had already been defended by Emmanuel Macron on June 21, on the occasion of the Music Festival. His government aims in particular to finance the National Music Center (CNM), for which streaming platforms – by subscription or free – with a turnover of more than 20 million euros will be imposed from 2024 on a rate of “1.2% of their turnover generated in France”, announced the Ministry of Culture. Expected income: fifteen million euros
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