The online music streaming service Spotify will pay more than $20 million to settle a long-running dispute with the National Music Publishers Association concerning royalties allegedly owed to music publishers, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Spotify has been hit with at least two lawsuits in recent months claiming the company has failed to pay royalties for streamed music. Neither lawsuit involves the association, but the deal could ultimately reduce the size of the settlements the company pays, according to the Times.

The deal also could act as template for agreements with other streaming music services also sued for allegedly failing to pay royalties, such as Google and Rhapsody.

"I am thrilled that through this agreement both independent and major publishers and songwriters will be able to get what is owed to them," NMPA CEO David Israelite said in a statement. "We must continue to push digital services to properly pay for the musical works that fuel their businesses and after much work together, we have found a way for Spotify to quickly get royalties to the right people."

Publishers who opt-in to the agreement will be able to use an online portal to register claims and receive their share of royalties, the newspaper reported. http://nyti.ms/22oP6qn

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