

Spotify next generation explained - tonyskn
http://blog.hunch.se/2010/04/spotify-next-generation

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whalesalad
It's a shame that it isn't available legally in the US of A. I have to VPN
into Sweden every couple of weeks to keep my account active. I'd be more than
willing to pay a premium fee... but even that won't work, your address has to
be in the country of your account.

Reasons I enjoy Spotify so much...

* Their client is super quick and simple

* Songs load essentially instantly, it's like they're local.

* They have an Android/iPhone client.

* You can create playlists and sync them for offline play.

Unfortunately, for those last two items, you need a premium account. I want to
give them my money, why won't they take it! =(

~~~
rhythmAddict
Totally agree. I used spotify for 2-3 months, but after a bit it got annoying
when my tor proxy would suddenly stop working, and I'd have to find a new one
that had enough bandwidth and was actually reliable enough. It is totally
doable, it's just annoying. That said, I would be more than happy to pay their
fee.

(If anyone has a solution to this...either a good proxy, or something else. I
am all ears. Also, when the eff are they coming to the US? I know they had
some plans...)

I now use Grooveshark, it's good, don't get me wrong, but spotify is much
better in terms of interface, but mainly they have a better catalog for the
music I listen to (mostly ambient/downtempo/trip hop). If I search for a group
Grooveshark will likely have 70% of the songs from each album...maybe. Whereas
in Spotify, I can just view 100% of all the albums. Also, while I have not
used the Spotify mobile app, I can tell you the Grooveshark mobile app kind of
sucks.

Cheers

~~~
goatforce5
Solution: Pay for a european-based proxy?

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gizmo
Spotify doesn't seem to work where I live, so I use Grooveshark instead.

Grooveshark has a gigantic library of music and instant streaming.
Recommendation engine works well, and you can explore the playlists of other
users to discover new music. I'm not sure how Grooveshark can stream music to
everybody for free (or almost free for pro users), but as long as it exists
I'll be a happy user.

~~~
michael_dorfman
I wasn't familiar with Grooveshark, and I'm having trouble figuring out their
licensing arrangement.

For example, they have quite a few tunes by Pink Floyd, who have instructed
EMI to keep their music off of iTunes, Spotify, and all other sites which
would allow "per-song" downloading or streaming-- they want to keep the
integrity of the albums intact.

This, coupled with the bits of the Grooveshark FAQ like "All of the music on
Grooveshark is uploaded by the users!" makes me think that Grooveshark is not
long for this world, once the RIAA discovers them.

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The-KG
Relevant link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooveshark#Legal_issues>

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mootothemax
I love Spotify and think it's an amazing service, but have recently started
wondering if it's just as bad for artists as AllOfMp3. After reading about
Lady Gaga earning close to nothing for 1 million plays, I'm not sure if it's a
service that we should continue to support that much. If 1 million plays don't
earn you any money, what's the incentive for less well-known artists?

[http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/music/news/s...](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/music/news/spotify-1-million-plays-163108-return-1944051.html)

~~~
mmelin
I think you'll find that an artist's income from 1 million Spotify plays far
exceeds the equivalent income from ten plays at a radio station with 100,000
listeners.

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teamonkey
Not that I doubt you, but this really needs a citation.

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mmelin
Sorry, I haven't been paying attention to my threads page.

The only data that I have available is for the Swedish market. The Swedish
Performing Rights Society, STIM, collect fees from everyone who plays music.
This quote is from their annual report (source at the bottom):

"A 3-minute song played on one of Sweden's national radio channels produces
around SEK 100 for authors and music publishers to share."

"A 3-minute song that is played on one of the commercial radio stations
produces around SEK 3 for authors and music publishers to share."

Of course, listener numbers differ, there are radio programs on national radio
that have 1 million listeners. A conservative estimate for an average listener
number on national radio would be 50,000.

100 SEK is $13.46 according to Google, let's call it $15 to be conservative.

So 100 SEK for 50,000 plays equals $0.0003 per play on Swedish national radio.
As you can see from the above the national radio pay a lot more per play than
commercial stations.

1 million plays on national radio would in the best of cases give $300 for all
the rights holders to share.

In the case of Lady Gaga's Poker Face, as explained in another article linked
in this thread, the income would be split 50/50 between Lady Gaga and her
Swedish songwriter (don't know the exact roles here but it's not important).

This means that the total payout for 1M plays of Poker Face from Spotify would
be $167 * 2 = $334.

So even in this case the income for 1M plays on Spotify exceeds the equivalent
income from 1M plays on Swedish national radio. Now, the Spotify payout
numbers reported here are from the absolute first beginnings of Spotify and
don't necessarily reflect the payout rates that are in place now when the
service is more mature, as was explained in the other article further up in
the thread.

STIM's latest annual report in English: <http://bit.ly/9ZW85p>

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cabalamat
I won't be using Spotify. Spotify is partly owned by the music industry, who
acquired their shareholding not by stumping up money like the other investors,
but by threatening them with lawsuits unless they were given free shares. (As
an aside, wanna guess what percentage of profits the music industry make out
of this will go to musicians? I suspect fuck all).

Iniquitous as that is, it's not my reason for boycotting Spotify. The reason
is that the music industry want to destroy my freedom, and helping them in any
way makes it easier for them to do this. They want to be judge, jury and
executioner over anyone's right to have an internet connection, and they want
all computing hardware to be locked down like the iPad.

Well I don't want that future. And if you don't want it too, I suggest you
never buy anything from the RIAA/IFPI, and explain to all your friends why
it's in their interests not to either.

~~~
rossriley
If artists get 4.5million streams a month they earn minimum wage. Source:
[http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-
music...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-
artists-earn-online/)

~~~
mzl
The source for that figure is nothing more than a guess. It takes the
approximate number of UK premium subscribers, multiplies by 12 months and £10.
Then it arbitrarily doubles the amount to account for advertising income, and
divides by the total number of streams in all countries.

I don't know how much an artist may get from Spotify, but my guess is that it
is significantly more than from radio.

~~~
marknutter
Not to mention artists can make money from other things besides streaming.
They can sell merch, play shows, etc.

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erikstarck
It seems like quite a lot of tracks has disappeared in this update as well. :/

~~~
mzl
The Spotify music database is normally updated independently of the
application.

As for the actual content, about two weeks ago I could see around 7.2 million
songs as a user in Sweden. Today I can see about 7.4 million songs. Is there
anything in particular that you know was removed?

~~~
erikstarck
I'm seeing grayed out tracks on songs by Freddie Wadling, Eva Cassidy, Dione
Taylor, Lee Hazlewood, Tupac Shakur, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, U96, Land Shark
and Moby to name a few.

But you're right: all in all they're growing which is great.

~~~
michael_dorfman
The Dylan was pulled quite a few months ago, and in fact, some has been coming
back-- they just added "Tell Tale Signs" not too long ago. Also, McCartney
pulled most of his stuff a month or two back-- there seems to be a dispute
with EMI.

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gustaf
been playing with the new features for the last 20 minutes. it's amazing. most
importantly, you can stop using itunes except for podcasts

~~~
nailer
I used to subscribe (love the service but found GBP 10 a month too expensive).
The library has always been great but music discovery (once you'd exhausted
the similar artists feature) was letting things down. This sounds like a great
value addition for users.

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kilian
Very nice update, but local files don't work on linux/under wine:
[http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/spotify_under_wine...](http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/spotify_under_wine_unable_to_playback_local_files)
That's a bit of a letdown, especially since it's intentional.

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nailer
From the link you provided, it's a bug with WINE's MP3 decoder. How is that
intentional?

~~~
kilian
Wine's mp3 decoder doesn't work in _some_ cases, including _some_ mp3 files by
Spotify's partners[1]. Because the decoder didn't work for _some_ mp3 files,
they are actively blocking wine's mp3 decoder for _all_ mp3 files.

[1] I agree this is a pretty solid business reason to block it, but it's still
intentional.

~~~
stse
The workaround [1] seem to work pretty good so far. No crashes, but it does go
into a (recoverable) loop if you pull the slider to the end of a track.

[1]
[http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/spotify_under_wine...](http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/spotify_under_wine_unable_to_playback_local_files#reply_2336829)

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superjohan
Something I noticed while running the new version the first time:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/johanhalin/4556877903/>

In other words, uncheck that if you don't want Spotify modifying your tags in
your audio files.

~~~
tonyskn
Definitely uncheck that button :) I had some jpop tracks in my library that
turned automatically into this <http://twitpic.com/1iuk5k>.

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pirko
One thing that I noticed in your inbox is the filter option, "Only show items
from people I follow". Does that mean that you can send songs to other peoples
inboxes that your are not friends with? Opportunity to spam music?

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sssparkkk
Well, it's really too bad they haven't introduced better playlist-management.
That's the one thing their client is lacking the most.

~~~
binarymax
The playlist manager does need some enhancement (as well as having a listening
history that spans sessions). But there are some cool features in here. I'm
definitely keen on the local libraries and the starred tracks.

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yesbabyyes
I dislike Spotify for the following reasons:

* The music industry is a major shareholder. Spotify is great for them because they can continue as gatekeeper and make Spotify a worse proposition to artists not signed to any of the big four.

* Artists not signed to the big four does, in fact, get a lot less per play than the big four get when their music is being played. So if I am a premium subscriber, and only listening to "indie" artists, the big four will still get my money.

* Artists have to go through digital distribution channels such as RouteNote and DittoMusic to get their music onto Spotify. Why not let them upload their own music directly?

* The big four bought their share in the company (around 5% each) for chump change.

* It is a lot easier to censor music when it's all in the same streamlined interface.

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juvenn
With no Mac at hand, I'd like a native app for Linux, instead of wine stuff.

~~~
erikstarck
You can write one yourself using the libspotify:
<http://developer.spotify.com/en/libspotify/overview/>

~~~
juvenn
Yeah, but I prefer the beautiful UI, not just functionalities, or the wine
stuff will do the work.

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pstinnett
Great looking update. I'm very excited to try Spotify once it comes to the US
(hopefully sometime this year?).

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mkg
Great look at the new featureset. Thanks! Can’t wait to try it out

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jhancock
Requires an invitation code.

