Pressure from big labels seen driving Spotify free music cutbacks

Music streaming service Spotify has decided to cut its free music hours in half and start enforcing playback caps. Its paid subscription tiers remain intact, leading many to believe that Spotify is just trying to get more users to start paying up.

<a href='http://meincmagazine.com/media/news/2011/04/pressure-from-big-labels-seen-driving-spotify-free-music-cutbacks.ars'>Read the whole story</a>

 

[Pirokobo]

1. Concede that piracy is a market pressure and that it is driving prices to zero; create free service to undermine demand for illegal downloads and produce advertising revenue.
2. Nerf free service in defiance of market pressure for price of zero.
3. Stop piracy?

 

[hobgoblin]

music piracy makes a resurgence, news at 11...

 

[silexh]

Just curious, why does it say 4.99 and 9.99 pound sterling?

 

[Nomeya]

There's more than enough competitors to go around, as I suspect many such as I will transition towards. Competitors such as Grooveshark, Deezer and others.

 

[lordmedikit]

Well goodbye Spotify and goodbye to buying music from the big labels based on listening to it first on Spotify.

I was going to sign up to Spotify for 4.99 but not anymore after this bad move. It reminds me of the evil scum my money would really be going to (the labels).

I think I'm off to Magnatune to sign up with them instead http://magnatune.com/

Also from my previous research here is the link silexh: http://www.spotify.com/uk/get-spotify/overview/

 

[r3loaded]

Wait, I have an unlimited Spotify Free account (not Open) that I have since the days when it was invite-only. Are they gonna restrict that too? If so, screw Spotify.

 

[Lbaxter]

1. Concede that piracy is a market pressure and that it is driving prices to zero; create free service to undermine demand for illegal downloads and produce advertising revenue.
2. Nerf free service in defiance of market pressure for price of zero.
3. Stop piracy?

Dude it's the music industry. Just roll your eyes and continue on with Netflix.

 

[lordmedikit]

Wait, I have an unlimited Spotify Free account (not Open) that I have since the days when it was invite-only. Are they gonna restrict that too? If so, screw Spotify.

I'm in the same boat and if you take their statement literally e.g. we did sign up before Nov 2010 then yes it will cripple our accounts too .

 

[2late2die]

With all the talk about piracy coming from the music industry, it's ironic that really, the biggest killer of the music industry is the music industry itself. They are the dinosaurs unwilling to adapt to the changing environment and being mercilessly pushed out by the mammals. At this point, at least I personally, find it much easier to just stream my music via dropbox and buy the occasional album (or actually just a track or two) once in a while, rather than use any sort of subscription service, because thanks to the music industry, they're all either to restrictive, too expensive, or lack content.

 

[lordmedikit]

1. Concede that piracy is a market pressure and that it is driving prices to zero; create free service to undermine demand for illegal downloads and produce advertising revenue.
2. Nerf free service in defiance of market pressure for price of zero.
3. Stop piracy?

Basically they either want you to be a pirate or pay them whatever they feel like charging for their music, no matter what its worth to the customer.

I would have thought the success of Spotify would have indicated a middle way for them, but hey I guess not.

I don't like piracy but these clowns seem almost determined to drive me towards it sometimes. It's not just that they have horrible business practices but whenever something progressive like the Amazon CloudDrive comes along they do their best to kill it immediately. The only thing I can conclude is that media companies are anti technology and I would hate to live in a world where they get their evil way.

 

[Cherlindrea]

I don't like piracy but these clowns seem almost determined to drive me towards it sometimes. It's not just that they have horrible business practices but whenever something progressive like the Amazon CloudDrive comes along they do their best to kill it immediately. The only thing I can conclude is that media companies are anti technology and I would hate to live in a world where they get their evil way.

You've pretty much nailed it there. The problem is that the music industry is far too big and invasive to be agile and adapt to the times. As such, they're apparently trying to set themselves up in the "too big to fail" category that we've seen various industries vie for lately. But instead of begging for government bailouts due to failing business models like others, they're buying legislation and swamping the courts (more MPAA lately than RIAA, but still) in order to maintain their business model instead of adapting--because they cannot adapt.

Quite simply, we need to find a way to cut them out as middle-men as the Internet is quickly rendering them obsolete. Hell, even the MPAA is starting to get less vital to the role of movies with newer digital technology. They likely still have a few more years on them before they're in the position of the RIAA though.

 

[Wida]

I don't now about your folks, but I'm getting a little tired of having my government, my justice system and my life being controlled by large corporations. We need a revolution, then a trial of the corporate officers for treason then they can be quickly shot so that we can start over again.

 

[dlux]

Just wanna say that I loaded this article just for the artwork.


Oh, and RIAA can suck my... etc.

 

[Smeghead]

Just curious, why does it say 4.99 and 9.99 pound sterling?

Spotify is based in the UK. Would you prefer €4.99 and €9.99 as per the other European countries in which they operate?

Personally, once the service launches here I can see myself potentially paying for their lower-tier unlimited plan. Over the last couple of weeks I've been using their free UK service, and it works pretty well. I didn't see anything in the T's&C's to play with it from abroad, and just punched in the postcode of the home I grew up in (and where my parents still live). It works pretty well, as far as I can tell.

I bailed on Last.fm when they introduced their pricing as they're just radio, but since Spotify lets you pick and choose, and that might be worth the price.

That said, it's still quite lame that you have to pay extra for mobile access. The distinction between mobile and desktop (or whatever) clients is completely artificial (as is their restricting their experimental Linux client, though to their credit they're quite open about running the Windows client under wine), but you know who's behind that...

 

[neodorian]

I just hope that as it gets cheaper to create and distribute media, the need for big labels will fade. They are fighting tooth and nail to maintain profit levels that are just not sustainable in the current marketplace. In the past it was necessary to work with them because it was the only way you could afford to produce and distribute music. Nowadays it's gotten so much cheaper to do (although still fairly expensive for the average person) that I hope artists will be able to produce their music, book tours, and make money without these companies. You may have less super-mega-stars but those were always the exception anyway.

What's the point of making $100k in sales when you owe $80k to the label for production costs and another $10-15k for tour costs? Now they are doing everything possible to limit free music through legit channels.

You're better off self producing or finding a small label. You may sell less and make less money but you also owe less and aren't stuck paying off some initial advance for the rest of your career.

 

[igalan]

Well, I find it a really good deal, the Unlimited option costs 5€/month. That's for over 7 million tracks to choose from. And 9.99€ for the ability to use it on you phone and download the tracks for completely off-line use. I'm a Premium subscriber and I'm very satisfied with the service, I currently share my subscription with my wife, she has it on her Nokia X6 and I have it on my Nexus One, each with our own tracks downloaded for off-line use.

If I have to complain about something it's the music player, it's not very well designed. For my local files it just won't treat them as part of an album and shuffles them all, there seems no way to play them in order.

Besides the free options are actually ad-supported, so some revenue still comes in.

 

[gorehound]

Well goodbye Spotify and goodbye to buying music from the big labels based on listening to it first on Spotify.

I was going to sign up to Spotify for 4.99 but not anymore after this bad move. It reminds me of the evil scum my money would really be going to (the labels).

I think I'm off to Magnatune to sign up with them instead http://magnatune.com/

Also from my previous research here is the link silexh: http://www.spotify.com/uk/get-spotify/overview/

support indie music and to hell with big content and anyone who would sign with them.

 

[ReaderBot]

I don't now about your folks, but I'm getting a little tired of having my government, my justice system and my life being controlled by large corporations. We need a revolution, then a trial of the corporate officers for treason then they can be quickly shot so that we can start over again.

Why do we need a trial? Live outside the rule of law, die outside the rule of law.

 

[Prelator]

Hmm, I just signed up for a new free Spotify account today and it still says I have 20 hours (which is actually per week, not month--mine always resets every week) and doesn't say anything about play limits. Won't affect me much anyway, since I have to create a new account every 2 weeks to use it from the US (haven't figured out a way to route the client's login through the web-only proxy I use to sign up with a UK IP). I mainly use it to preview music before buying anyway, since it's still the only place I can listen to a whole CD for free before buying it (man do I miss Lala).

 

[kdh]

Don't care. Not at all. I have been a premium subscriber for over a year and to be honest: I love it! It's the best music service avalabel to me at this moment. Why? It's cheap when you think about the amount of music you get for ~15$, it's highly portable, ad-free, no need for a large hd to store tens of thousands of songs (this is good for your iphone), you can stream from your local library, offline playlists, sharing of playlists AND it's L-E-G-A-L. Not to mention it's much more easy/userfrendly than torrenting music.

There is only one catch: Not everything is available in their library, because of the idiots in the record industry thinks that they wont make enough money. But guess what? Spotify streams from your local library to any mobile device you might have and ads them to your playlist's. That means that any band or artist that isn't on spotify gets pirated by me, added to my local spotify library and becomes available everywhere i have my iphone.

So seriously? Stop whining. The money spotify got from advertising didn't even pay the servers the freemium users used. Things simply cost money. Yes, even music.

 

[ripdog]

Don't care. Not at all. I have been a premium subscriber for over a year and to be honest: I love it! It's the best music service avalabel to me at this moment. Why? It's cheap when you think about the amount of music you get for ~15$, it's highly portable, ad-free, no need for a large hd to store tens of thousands of songs (this is good for your iphone), you can stream from your local library, offline playlists, sharing of playlists AND it's L-E-G-A-L. Not to mention it's much more easy/userfrendly than torrenting music.

There is only one catch: Not everything is available in their library, because of the idiots in the record industry thinks that they wont make enough money. But guess what? Spotify streams from your local library to any mobile device you might have and ads them to your playlist's. That means that any band or artist that isn't on spotify gets pirated by me, added to my local spotify library and becomes available everywhere i have my iphone.

So seriously? Stop whining. The money spotify got from advertising didn't even pay the servers the freemium users used. Things simply cost money. Yes, even music.

Switch to grooveshark. They have all the features of spotify, are available everywhere, and allow user uploads, thus giving them a far larger music library. They have apps for all major mobile platforms, etc etc. It really makes me laugh, people going nuts over services like spotify and last.fm, when they are so terrible compared to GS.

 

[baba264]

I really like the art, it gave me a nice smile (which is a performance that early in the morning).

On to the subject, I agree 100% with lordmedikit.

The music industry seems determined to keep looking backward instead of forward and wants to hold everyone else back as well. It has been so ever since the apparition of mp3.

First they tried to prevent us from ripping our CDs, then from buying music online and now they want to prevent us from streaming it. All the while they never proposed anything other than the oldfashioned CDs to distribute their content.

No matter how I see it, I admit I have a hard time understanding what kind of flawed logic their exec. must be following....

 

[Frikk_]

Have been a premium subscriber for a while and I must say it's the best money I've ever spent. It's so much more convenient than pirating and the price is bearable

 

[kdh]

Don't care. Not at all. I have been a premium subscriber for over a year and to be honest: I love it! It's the best music service avalabel to me at this moment. Why? It's cheap when you think about the amount of music you get for ~15$, it's highly portable, ad-free, no need for a large hd to store tens of thousands of songs (this is good for your iphone), you can stream from your local library, offline playlists, sharing of playlists AND it's L-E-G-A-L. Not to mention it's much more easy/userfrendly than torrenting music.

There is only one catch: Not everything is available in their library, because of the idiots in the record industry thinks that they wont make enough money. But guess what? Spotify streams from your local library to any mobile device you might have and ads them to your playlist's. That means that any band or artist that isn't on spotify gets pirated by me, added to my local spotify library and becomes available everywhere i have my iphone.

So seriously? Stop whining. The money spotify got from advertising didn't even pay the servers the freemium users used. Things simply cost money. Yes, even music.

Switch to grooveshark. They have all the features of spotify, are available everywhere, and allow user uploads, thus giving them a far larger music library. They have apps for all major mobile platforms, etc etc. It really makes me laugh, people going nuts over services like spotify and last.fm, when they are so terrible compared to GS.

I took you up on that. I'm not a spotify fanboy, I just get infuriated by people who thinks that music is free. But guess what? To get the same service i get from spotify on grooveshark I have to PAY. The difference is just that it's a far inferior service: It's badly tagged, there is a large lag before songs are played (yes 2-3 sec is far from instant), some of the music I listen to all the time aren't there, they get sued all the time and they don't have any agreements with the record-industry. But first and foremost: I dont pay for spotify to listen on my computer, i pay for it to have it on my cell-phone both offline and online. To get that from Grooveshark i have to pay, slightly less i agree, but 5$ extra is worth it when the service is that much better.

 

[BottledCello]

"Whether Spotify made the decision itself or because the music industry twisted its arm"

I doubt it needed much twisting considering the Big Four owns ~17% of Spotify.

There was another incentive to switch from Free/Open a couple of weeks ago when their ad network was spreading viruses.

(I'll miss having unlimited access with surprisingly little ads for free, but come on, €4.99/month is a bargain for what you get.)