The nature of the music on the internet has changed a lot since the time you allegedly downloaded Eve’s Let Me Blow Ya Mind on Kazaa for free. Apple changed everything, as usual, when they showed the world that people would be willing to hand over a dollar for individual tracks, and streaming sites like Pandora and Slacker took things further when they stepped in and let you listen to music you liked, for free.
Yet with all the free listening options out there, only Spotify is letting users have complete control over what they hear, with no skip counts or limitations.
It is nerve racking at first to imagine leaving behind a treasure-trove of songs and meticulously crafted playlists on iTunes, the home for every Apple device we own. But Spotify easily imports all this data from iTunes, and although it can’t sync our iPhone, its draw is compelling.
What’s not to love? You don’t pay for anything, can build high-quality playlists with songs you haven’t committed to buying yet, easily explore artists you love and control every aspect of what you’re listening to. I’m not afraid of the ads either. Spotify only launches an ad after you’ve listened to a few songs and less frequently if the songs you play are lesser-known. The advertisements are not intrusive and generally only last for a minute.
I don’t pay for Spotify Premium, but it’s getting harder to find reasons not to (especially when I consider the value of my Netflix subscription). For $10 a month, I can get every song I want, on all of my devices. It’s hard not to take that offer, especially since I am dying to put all the music I’ve saved to Spotify in my iTunes library. To buy every one of those songs from iTunes, I would have to send over about $2,000 to Apple.
So I can’t really justify not using Spotify. But every rose has its thorn. It’s been reported that Spotify is literally paying less than pennies for each play, $0.0013-per-play. Those royalties then get sent to the record label and the artist only sees a fraction of the money. However, you have to remember that these songs are being played by 24 million users and, since launching, Spotify has paid out over $500 million to rights holders according to its website.
I understand why the industry is upset. Spotify is practically robbing them blind. Pandora’s founder, Tim Westergren, announced in a blog post last October that Pandora’s top earners like Drake and Lil Wayne are approaching an annual payout of $3 million and bands like Mumford & Sons raked in $523,902. Spotify has not released any data on individual payouts.
But record labels need to be looking at this from a different angle. The money they earn isn’t just extra profit, its money they would otherwise have lost from piracy. It might not be fair, but it’s just the way things are.
The record companies have been trying to curb piracy for years. The answer has arrived, and they need to cultivate this new subscription-based model. Twenty million users are paying Spotify to listen to their music, and corporations are paying for the rest. That seems like a much better deal for everyone than continuing with non-effective piracy habits.
It seems to me that the value of having music on Spotify, especially as an artist in your growth stage, goes beyond any royalties Spotify might send.
I’ve noticed myself listening to music on Spotify that I didn’t necessarily love enough to buy when I first heard it, and then I purchase it on iTunes a week later. I’ve discovered bands that I’ve never listened to before and had the chance to explore music I already liked.
Now that I’m an even bigger fan of these artists, I’m much more likely to get tickets to their shows, buy a t-shirt or buy their next album than I ever would have been if I didn’t first discover this music on a service like Spotify.
Is it the death of iTunes? I’m not sure. But I know one thing; I’m not planning on buying a song from the Music Store for some time.