Yesterday Digital Music News published an article about the state of Spotify royalty payments.
‘Viva Spotify’ isn’t quite the phrase being bandied about at Midem, and executives from both sides of the Atlantic are continuing to disparage. But this is a nuanced picture. Most European executives we’ve talked to recognized that Spotify has achieved ubiquity in many countries, and considerable progress on the premium front. And, this is an addictive product that’s playing by the rules.
But the money situation is problematic, and that has prompted a few independents to jump ship. But also on the major label side, the royalties are a royal problem. In fact, one major label executive close to the numbers pointed to a bizarre problem: there aren’t enough zeros in the royalty program to calculate the fractions being paid by Spotify.
So, think .00000000000005 euros and you get the idea. ”It’s laughable, if it wasn’t so sad really,” the executive told Digital Music News after a few beers.
It seems as though executives and even Digital Music News don’t understand why Spotify is a great service for artists. Having your music on a specific service isn’t always about the revenue generated by that single activity. Spotify allows artists to showcase their music with the aim of growing their fan base even further. I would much rather have 1 million listeners on Spotify and get some of them to see us in concert, instead of just selling a few downloads on another store.
Spotify also aims to provide a service that will attract users away from bittorrent and other p2p services. More music is being consumed that ever before and from a larger diversity of artists. However, legal music only makes up a less than 7% of the entire online music market. Executives should be focused on helping to grow these new services that will attract users from illegal alternatives, instead of trying to pick holes in the legal service of Spotify!
Spotify has received a huge amount of press since launch and it seems that the hype has been completely justified. Spotify is now about to pass 10 million users.
The company is holding a party in London later this month “to celebrate reaching 10 million users across Europe”, according to an invite sent out to press and partners.
It’s impressive growth, with Spotify still only available in seven countries: the UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Spain.
There are millions of users all over the world who are already using Spotify. If you dont already know, Spotify is a music streaming service, which allows users to create playlists and listen to tracks from millions of artists worldwide. Previously, it hasnt been very easy to get your music on Spotify and as they are about to launch in the USA it is now very important to join the leading music service.
RouteNote allows artists to get their music onto Spotify and other streaming music services for FREE. All artists need to do is head to RouteNote.com and signup for an account. Once you have signed up, you are able to upload your music and choose the partners you would like to send your music to. Its that easy!
There are so many other music distributors out there that charge artsits a lot of money for this service, plus most also charge per store. RouteNote is the ONLY distributor that doesnt charge any upfront fees!
Spotify and other streaming services are very important for artists. These services dont currently make artists huge amounts of revenues (unless you have millions of plays). These services are used more for promotion and as the internet progresses these service will make a lot more money and it will become the main revenue stream for artists (just my opinion).
Anyways, make sure you head to RouteNote.com and signup! Its that easy!
Spotify have just announced that their iPhone application will soon be able to multitask on the new iOS4 software for the iPhone. Users will now be able to listen to their music and use the other applications at the same time (no need for the iPod feature anymore!).
However, the company has just provided an answer in a blog post:
“We know that many of you have been waiting for an update to our iPhone app that supports the latest iOS 4 and background listening. We’re happy to say that an updated app has been submitted to Apple for review. Hopefully we’ll get a speedy approval and to make up for the extra little wait time we’ve added a nice little surprise to make Spotify mobile even more exciting for you, stay tuned!”
Even though Limewire is being sued by pretty much every major music corporation, they are planning a subscription based music service. Thats right, Limewire is going legit.
Limewire in essences is planning a direct Spotify competitor.
“Users will have complete and instant access to their entire library and catalog across their desktop, devices, and in the cloud,” a company executive relayed. “By syncing iTunes playlists and content to the cloud, users’ existing libraries are available to access and stream to a wide range of connected devices.”
Of course, major labels (and publishers) are suing this company with a passion. But according to LimeWire, label executives are also supporting the post-gavel initiative. ”We can confirm that in our ongoing dialogues with numerous industry executives, this service has been very well received,” another LimeWire source relayed.
The Limewire service is scheduled to launch late in 2010, but we will see if it works out.
It has been reported that streaming music service Spotify can now be accessed via TV. The service has launched its app for 120,000 of TeliaSonera’s digital TV customers in Sweden and Finland.
“Introducing Spotify into the living room is a major step forward in our continued efforts to make Spotify available wherever you are,” says CEO Daniel Ek.
The service can only be accessed by Spotify Premium subscribers, but now with access via PC, mobile and TV, the Premium service looks very attractive!
“Everybody loves music and even though many of us carry our favourite music with us, a lot of music consumption remains in the home. We believe that giving music fans the ability access Spotify directly through the TV and into the living room will attract even more users to the world’s hottest music service.” Stefan Trampus the TeliaSonera’s manager of broadband.
It is also rumoured that Spotify is planning their own range of mobile phones, but I would much rather see them get a deal with a few car manufacturers so I can access my music pretty much anywhere!
Music subscription services are still yet to prove themselves in the market, but I really think they are the future of music online. Rdio is a very new player to this market, but they have already been making quite a huge stir. Rdio was co-founded by serial entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who previously started Skype, Kazaa and Joost.
Rdio is set to launch into an invitation only beta later this week, but only in the USA. Rdio is a streaming based cloud music service by which users will be able to access a library of millions of songs for a flat monthly fee. Desktop and mobile access via iPhones and BlackBerrys costs $10 monthly, while desktop-only customers pay $5.
There are already a lot of players in this space, such as MOG (in the USA) and Spotify (in Europe), Thumbplay (USA) and Rhapsody (USA). A lot of people are betting that this will be the type of music service that will win out in the end, but I think there are already to many players in this market and I think it is going to be a winners market (only a couple will survive).
Disclosure: Spotify, Thumbplay and MOG are all RouteNote partners. We hope Rdio will also be a partner very soon!
Spotifylaunches two new options to use their service: Spotify Unlimited and Spotify Open.
Spotify Unlimited: costs £4.99 a month, and offers unlimited ad-free music – but ONLY on the computer. If users want mobile access, better sound quality, offline access and other premium features, they’ll still have to sign up to the £9.99-a-month Spotify Premium service.
Spotify Open: Spotify Open is a different flavour of the ad-supported free version of Spotify which caps people’s monthly usage. They’ll be able to listen to the service – with ads – for 20 hours a month. People can sign up to Spotify Open without needing an invite. The Spotify Free service isn’t being scrapped – yet – but it will still be invite-only.
“Up until today, new Spotify users have had two options – either subscribe to the full Spotify Premium experience or receive a Spotify Free invite from a friend,” says Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. “Following Spotify’s major upgrade, we wanted to give music fans new ways to enjoy the service. Now everyone who wants a great introduction to Spotify without an invite, or who wants to enjoy unlimited, ad-free music just on their computers, can do so.”
Additionally: Spotify has just launched in the Netherlands today, so make sure you head to the site and get in!
Only days after Spotify had a major upgrade which included a lot of social and sharing features, We7 has now announced some new sharing features of their own.
We7 is still yet to make an official announcement, but it seems that users can now connect to their Facebook account to post details while also scrobbling tracks to Last.fm.
Spotify released a major update to their service today, integrating a massive set of social and functional features, including the ability to linkn your Facebook and Spotify accounts, and the option of using to play all the music on your computer’s hard drive.
The new features will be available to free and premium subscribers alike; full list after their little introductory video. All of this new functionality makes Spotify an even stronger contender in the battle for dominance in the online music market, which will be put to the test if and when they launch in the US later this year, going up against already established services like MOG, Sirius and Pandora.
Social
Connect to Facebook: you can connect to Facebook inside of Spotify, instantly adding all your Facebook friends who’ve selected the same feature. Your friends’ profiles will appear in a new ‘People’ sidebar at the right of the screen, with your personal profile at the top.
Add usernames: you can also add people by typing their Spotify username, should you know it, into the Spotify search field. For example searching ‘spotify:user:username’ will bring up their profile (if their profile is published).
Publish your Spotify profile to the web: easily publish the link to your Spotify profile on your blog, Facebook page, website or anywhere else on the web and allow others to follow your musical journey. For example here’s a link to the official Spotify profile.
Inbox: a new ‘inbox’ folder on Spotify’s left sidebar lets you send tracks to friends directly within the platform, simply by dragging and dropping a track to their name in the People sidebar. Alternatively, just right click on the track and select the new ‘send to’ option.
Facebook feed: music your friends have posted on Facebook will be visible on the Spotify ‘What’s new’ page and via a new ‘Feed’ tab.
Popularity count for playlists: all playlists will show how many other Spotify users are currently subscribed to that playlist. By clicking on the number, you can even see the usernames of those who added the playlist.
Track playlist changes: see who and when a track was added to a playlist with the new ‘Added’ and ‘User’ columns in playlists.
Library
Local files: missing any music in Spotify? Now you can import a link to all the music files stored on your computer with a simple click of a button.
Gracenote: As with any good music media player, if you have missing or incorrect track information you need software to check those files and automatically correct them so that you can better organise and link them to our catalogue. Gracenote does just this.
Local file linking: we will check your local files and see if we have that track/artist/album in Spotify. If we do, we’ll make the file linkable so you can easily go from that file into an artist or album page. This allows for better sharing of playlists that contain a mix of your own music and Spotify’s.
Starred: every track and album on Spotify can now be ‘starred’ – allowing you to tag all your favourites into a special sub-folder.
Wireless sync: you can copy your music files to your mobile without connecting a USB cable with our new wireless sync feature.
Filter bar: the library has a permanent filter-bar at the top so you can easily type in what you’re searching for. In all other lists the filter bar is visible when pressing cmd-f (mac) or ctrl-f (windows).
Additional features
Mosaic images for playlists: the artwork from the first nine tracks in a playlist will create a cool mosaic image for your playlist
New toolbar in headers: Sharing music to Facebook/Twitter and your friends is much simpler. Easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to a playlist as well as view information about how popular a playlist is.
A share icon in ‘Now playing’ artwork: makes sharing what you’re currently listening to much easier.
Automatic track replacement: Spotify will now automatically try to find a replacement for any track you can’t play. So if a friend in another country sends you a playlist with tracks you can’t play or a local file, we’ll search our catalogue and link to a playable track when possible. A ‘link’ icon next to the track name represents replaced tracks.
Social
* Connect to Facebook: you can connect to Facebook inside of Spotify, instantly adding all your Facebook friends who’ve selected the same feature. Your friends’ profiles will appear in a new ‘People’ sidebar at the right of the screen, with your personal profile at the top.
* Add usernames: you can also add people by typing their Spotify username, should you know it, into the Spotify search field. For example searching ‘spotify:user:username’ will bring up their profile (if their profile is published).
* Publish your Spotify profile to the web: easily publish the link to your Spotify profile on your blog, Facebook page, website or anywhere else on the web and allow others to follow your musical journey. For example here’s a link to the official Spotify profile.
* Inbox: a new ‘inbox’ folder on Spotify’s left sidebar lets you send tracks to friends directly within the platform, simply by dragging and dropping a track to their name in the People sidebar. Alternatively, just right click on the track and select the new ‘send to’ option.
* Facebook feed: music your friends have posted on Facebook will be visible on the Spotify ‘What’s new’ page and via a new ‘Feed’ tab.
* Popularity count for playlists: all playlists will show how many other Spotify users are currently subscribed to that playlist. By clicking on the number, you can even see the usernames of those who added the playlist.
* Track playlist changes: see who and when a track was added to a playlist with the new ‘Added’ and ‘User’ columns in playlists.
Library
* Local files: missing any music in Spotify? Now you can import a link to all the music files stored on your computer with a simple click of a button.
o Gracenote: As with any good music media player, if you have missing or incorrect track information you need software to check those files and automatically correct them so that you can better organise and link them to our catalogue. Gracenote does just this.
o Local file linking: we will check your local files and see if we have that track/artist/album in Spotify. If we do, we’ll make the file linkable so you can easily go from that file into an artist or album page. This allows for better sharing of playlists that contain a mix of your own music and Spotify’s.
* Starred: every track and album on Spotify can now be ‘starred’ – allowing you to tag all your favourites into a special sub-folder.
* Wireless sync: you can copy your music files to your mobile without connecting a USB cable with our new wireless sync feature.
* Filter bar: the library has a permanent filter-bar at the top so you can easily type in what you’re searching for. In all other lists the filter bar is visible when pressing cmd-f (mac) or ctrl-f (windows).
Additional features
* Mosaic images for playlists: the artwork from the first nine tracks in a playlist will create a cool mosaic image for your playlist
* New toolbar in headers: Sharing music to Facebook/Twitter and your friends is much simpler. Easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to a playlist as well as view information about how popular a playlist is.
* A share icon in ‘Now playing’ artwork: makes sharing what you’re currently listening to much easier.
* Automatic track replacement: Spotify will now automatically try to find a replacement for any track you can’t play. So if a friend in another country sends you a playlist with tracks you can’t play or a local file, we’ll search our catalogue and link to a playable track when possible. A ‘link’ icon next to the track name represents replaced tracks.
Music subscription services are still 
