Est. 1998
Labels Agree To Free Downloads
Spotify’s catalogue is now almost the size of Apple’s iTunes, whose dominance may be coming to an end.
“We think that music has gone from being about ownership to being about access,” Daniel Ek, chief executive and founder of Spotify, said. “I have established that. People listen to more music than ever from a bigger diversity of artists. They don’t care so much any more about actually owning physical CDs, or even downloading, they care about being able to access whatever they want, whenever they want it, wherever they are.”
Piracy, or illegal downloading, robs artists of their royalties, so this system would be fairer to them all, and someone listening to a song this way would be more likely to buy the product or go to a concert to watch the artists perform. It is difficult to prosecute many of the people who download illegally, so this system would make it more advantageous for the music fan and would give the artist the exposure he needs to sell his music.
However, Spotify relies on advertising for it’s revenues and it is not known if that will be strong enough in the long-term.
Source: Timesonline & MJWN
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