Spotify’s potential bill in the MLC bundling case hits $619 million
The estimate rose €65 million in one quarter, and the lawsuit over Premium’s bundle status now heads toward summary judgment.
Spotify’s potential liability if The MLC wins its bundling lawsuit outright has climbed to about €538 million, or $619 million. The figure comes from the notes to Spotify’s Q3 2026 financial statements, as Music Business Worldwide reported. It is up €65 million from the €473 million in the Q2 filing, which had itself risen €63 million from the quarter before. Spotify’s first estimate, for March 1 to June 30, 2024, was €46 million. By the end of June 2025 it had reached €256 million. The filing does not say what drove the latest increase.
The MLC sued on May 16, 2024, alleging that Spotify had underpaid royalties since March 2024 by classifying Premium as a bundle that includes audiobook access. The current figure is cumulative from March 1, 2024 through September 30, 2026, and it applies only if The MLC is “entirely successful” in its claim that Premium is not a bundle. The court has already ruled that it is one. That outcome would require The MLC to overturn the ruling on appeal once the rest of the case is resolved.
Spotify says penalties and interest could come on top, which it “cannot reasonably estimate,” and that any liability “would be partially offset by direct deals with publishers.” Since January 2025, Spotify has signed direct US publishing deals with Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Kobalt, Sony Music Publishing and BMG.
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres dismissed The MLC’s original complaint in January 2025, holding that Premium is a bundle. The MLC filed an amended complaint on October 1, 2025. It targets how Spotify valued the parts of the Premium bundle and how it reported royalties for its Audiobooks Access plan.
In a September 1 order, Torres denied The MLC’s request to appeal the bundle ruling immediately. “MLC has not met its burden to show that there is a ‘substantial ground for difference of opinion’ as to the Court’s dismissal order,” she wrote. The same order struck Spotify’s “unclean hands” defense, which rested on its assertion that The MLC had not challenged other licensees over how they report bundles of music and audiobooks.
Under a revised schedule approved October 9, pre-motion letters for summary judgment are due December 11.
