
Spotify CEO Responds to Taylor Swift - dmak
http://www.spotifyartists.com/2-billion-and-counting/
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ainiriand
I understand that this guy is trying to protect his business, but he falls
into some arguments that, in my opinion, are the true problem with music.
Artists create works that do not have, by itself, be paid for. Why? I can
label myself artist and claim money from people? How does that work? The
people have to judge if the artist deserves to be paid. In the modern world,
the artist has many ways of collect income from his or her works, Spotify,
crowdfunding, broadcast live events, and so on. But what this guy calls piracy
is not harming artists, it harms an obsolete industry that only views a way to
collect income. They sell records and collect money. This has nothing to do
with the artist. Spotify, by itself, only perpetuates this way of operate,
with its fixed prices and tight contracts with the major labels.

~~~
Cowicide
Agreed, the part where he says, "... Piracy doesn’t pay artists a penny –
nothing, zilch, zero." \- I involuntarily muttered, "Bullshit." out loud.

He should probably listen to Neil Gaiman's story on how piracy can, indeed,
make artists money:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI)

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geebee
This was a good response, though I don't really agree with a couple of
statements.

1\. I think that the analogy between spotify and radio is too flawed to be
useful

"If a song has been listened to 500 thousand times on Spotify, that’s the same
as it having been played one time on a U.S. radio station with a moderate
sized audience of 500 thousand people. Which would pay the recording artist
precisely … nothing at all. But the equivalent of that one play and its 500
thousand listens on Spotify would pay out between three and four thousand
dollars."

Huge difference between a play on spotify and a play on radio. Radio you take
what you get. If you think "hey, I'd like to listen to that new Taylor Swift
song", you can scan through the channels and I suppose you may eventually,
after 30 minutes of scanning, come up with it. No guarantees, though. If you
want to listen to that song exactly when and where you want, you can't get it
from the radio. So I don't think this is a reasonable comparison. Spotify
doesn't replace radio plays, it replaces purchased or pirated music.

2\. I think that Mr Ek relies too much on the piracy argument

Yes, it's better to be paid something than nothing. But I'm not 100% sure this
is a good reason for a recording artist to agree to legal terms that result in
poor royalties. Taylor Swift's agent (I think it was the agent) described it
this way - a fan pays $15 for the album, and her friend says "why did you pay
for that? you could have just gotten it off <pirate site>." Contrast that with
"why did you pay for that? you could have gotten it legally for free off
<legitimate site>." There's a difference in kind here.

~~~
mzzk
>Taylor Swift's agent (I think it was the agent) described it this way - a fan
pays $15 for the album, and her friend says "why did you pay for that? you
could have just gotten it off <pirate site>." Contrast that with "why did you
pay for that? you could have gotten it legally for free off <legitimate
site>."

That's not how it works for many. I have friends who pay for Spotify and
download (illegally) any content not available on the service. Ultimately,
this move will not only harm her discoverability but will also harm her
reputation by withholding her music (from fans) for greater profit.

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SnacksOnAPlane
Honestly, I think Taylor Swift was really smart to pull her music from
Spotify. She made her music basically a "must-have" for a lot of people, and
she forced them to pay the full price for the album. She's going to make a lot
more money from this than she would from Spotify payments. Good for her; I
think she earned it.

I think this might be the way that more artists start to go: use Spotify while
you're gaining an audience, so people can find you and listen to your stuff at
no extra cost to them. Then, when (and if) you've become "indispensable", pull
your catalog (or at least new release) and sell it separately.

I think Spotify should embrace this model by having a "paid catalog" for your
music library, so you don't have to leave the Spotify app to play music from
the artists who chose to go the "paid album" route. As it is, I would have to
open the Amazon Music app to play Taylor's album, which is an unnecessary bit
of extra friction.

I'm happy to pay for good music occasionally, even on top of the $10/month I
already give Spotify.

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_almosnow
"To say nothing of the fans who will just turn back to pirate services like
Grooveshark."

Grooveshark made the first move in that space. IMO all credit goes to them.
They created the business model where Spotify now thrives. The only difference
I see between the two of them is Spotify raising $500M vs almost non-existant
funding to Grooveshark, who knows what made one triumph and the other fail,
perhaps just sucking the right cocks.

Also Daniel could have, more accurately, said "To say nothing of the fans who
will just turn back to pirate services like uTorrent."; a company that was
once headed by him and whose only purpose of existence is to enable piracy.

