spotify Archive

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The Secret Demands Of Record Labels

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on December 19, 2011Posted in: Music Industry

Michael Robertson of MP3Tunes on the otherworldly demands the major record labels have for digital music services:

With most other businesses, if a supplier makes unreasonable demands, a retailer can turn to other providers. Since copyright law gives record labels and publishers a government-granted monopoly, no such option is possible with music. Digital vendors have only two options: Accept the terms or not include those songs in their offering.

It’s a ridiculous situation that innovative companies like Spotify are beholden to such lazy companies as the major record labels. The terms of their deals are so laughably one-sided that it’s almost unbelievable. Could you imagine going into a “normal” business negotiation with these?

Hopefully, as time goes on, and the majors’ artist rosters dwindle from relevant new acts eschewing them, the tables will turn. Yes, the majors’ will always have their catalog, but if things continue on their current path, they may be forced to license out the catalog at a discounted rate in order to stay relevant.

via GigaOM.

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Spotify Apps

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on December 8, 2011Posted in: Music Industry, Technology

Thomas Houston from The Verge:

We’ve been waiting for years for someone to seamlessly wed editorial content like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork’s lists and reviews to a deep music backend, and this is a great step in that direction. These beta apps, though, are merely a first step, and don’t fully reflect the deep archives, sorting features, and knowledge of these sites yet, and we’re hoping to see that in future versions.

If I’m in a pinch for time to get some new music, oftentimes I’ll just troll Pitchfork’s best new music section for stuff to listen to on Spotify. With the Pitchfork App, I can listen to the album right there on the same page of the review. It’s awesome and time-saving. Houston is right in that many of the apps are bare-bones as of now, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction and we’re truly seeing a killer music app that combines content curation with instant gratification start to take shape.

From a business standpoint, it was brilliant for Spotify to bring the app makers to the Spotify client, rather than the other way around. It ensures that people will be Spotify users first and foremost.

You can try out Spotify apps out for yourself by downloading a preview client here. (Shame on Spotify for not linking to this on their Apps product page!)

via The Verge.

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Just Bring Spotify To The US Already

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on September 9, 2010Posted in: Features, Music, Music Industry, Technology

It’s been almost two years since Spotify launched in Europe – why in the hell isn’t it out in the US yet?

Yeah, yeah, the question is rhetorical because what other reason is there for blocking the domestic release of what Lifehacker calls “the best desktop music player we’ve ever used?”

Raise your hand if you guessed right – The reason why Spotify isn’t out yet is because of our old bumbling nemesis, the major record labels!

Before we dig in, I want to reiterate why Spotify is so compelling a product. The excitement of what Spotify offers isn’t so much the actual product it peddles. There are already a handful of music services that offer unlimited music playback for a monthly fee. Its main draw is that it employs a ad-supported freemium model where anyone can listen to music without charge initially. If you like the service you can pay for other compelling perks such as mobile device playback or higher quality playback.

I think the music monetization problem is twofold. The first is finding a means in delivering music to people that isn’t cumbersome and cost-prohibitive to the consumer. This is a problem that is more or less solved by Spotify. It’s easy to use, delivers accurate results, is the right price, and even incorporates innovative features like playlist collaboration/browser based sharing. The service itself appears to be a great product, worthy of people’s time. It’s not a trivial accomplishment, as most other “legitimate” music services have failed miserably at this throughout the years, including the vaunted iTunes.

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