Court dismisses MLC’s case, allowing Spotify to maintain lower bundled royalty rates. What happened? Almost eight months ago, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) filed a lawsuit against Spotify. It’s argument? Spotify’s decision to reclassify its US subscriptions as music-and-audiobook bundles was an unfair tactic to reduce mechanical royalty payments to songwriters and publishers. Revenue from bundled services is treated differently from standalone music subscription revenue, leading to lower mechanical royalty rates. Since an estimated 99% of Spotify’s US subscriptions fall under the bundled category, insiders estimated that this move could cost songwriters and publishers as much as $150 million in…