“The worst scenario for the music industry”: Deezer protests against the tax on streaming platforms

2023-12-15 09:37:40

Deezer is having trouble swallowing the pill. While the government announced the implementation from 2024 of a tax on the turnover of online music listening platforms, the deputy general director of Deezer Stéphane Rougeot expressed his bitterness to our colleagues from BFMTV.

If he recognizes that this initiative wanted by Emmanuel Macron is “fair”, he would have liked to be listened to more. “We are disappointed by the decision that was made. This is the worst scenario for the music industry and more particularly for pure players like us (…) We had proposed a voluntary contribution, but the idea was apparently not accepted,” he regrets.

Should we expect price increases? The Swedish Spotify has already announced on franceinfo that the price of subscriptions will not increase following this decision. The platform, however, considers that this tax is “a monumental strategic error which goes against the issues of European economic, cultural and technological sovereignty” and announces that “France will no longer be a priority for Spotify”.

For Deezer, the situation is different, since France represents more than half (60%) of the French platform’s turnover. “This is why this decision has a disproportionate impact on our scale. It affects us more than others,” says Stéphane Rougeot.

Already one euro more expensive than its competitors Apple Music and Spotify, Deezer however indicates that it has “not made a decision” regarding the passing on of the tax but assures that this will not be passed on to rights holders. If it were to be modular according to the turnover of the platforms, this tax would ultimately have to be at a single rate, which “penalizes us even more”, concludes the deputy general manager of Deezer.