These companies are not against independent artists. The big rights holders are.
Allowing artists to upload directly is a legal clusterfuck of minefields and business risks (pardon the language):
- what happens when an artist who is signed with Warner Music starts uploading their music directly?
- what happens when the Big Three start viewing Spotify (or Google, or anyone, really) as their competitor in music distribution?
Somehow almost literally no one focuses on how Warner, Sony, and Universal have a death grip on both artists and distribution companies. But everyone is willing to vilify Spotify.
If you did the first thing, you’d be stupid, and in breach of your contract, just as if you shared it elsewhere. And it’d get taken down pretty quickly, algorithmically or not.
Ah, herein lies the devil in the details. The contracts may or may not specify worldwide distribution rights, may concern distribution rights in some countries only, may or may not leave leeway for the artist to distribute their own stuff etc. etc. etc.
It's a legal minefield, and the big three love it.
Yet somehow music distribution ends up being controlled by different companies in different countries for quite a lot of music. Especially for older music.
Plenty of companies will mass upload your music to all of the streaming sites for like $20-30/year which sounds pretty cheap compared to the old days of needing a record label to do anything other than play in bars. Those companies aren't considered record labels, they are distributors which is almost what Spotify is doing. Some of those distributors offer engineering and marketing services too but it still doesn't make them record labels. There are so many record labels out there that there really isn't an issue with another smaller one popping up.
I'm sure they're fine with the small fish. But with Spotify, Apple, and others who might have the financial muscles to become a threat if given the chance? I'm not so sure.
Could you elaborate a bit? Do you think it's because of copyright issues, or because labels don't want Spotify to become a popular distributor that publishes exclusively to itself?
I doubt copyright issues had an impact here. There is always a much larger perspective the labels have over the industry than what we can talk about here.
Ultimately, it is about control. Every decision from the ads you hear to the choice of music you get in your Discover Weekly playlists (or any made by Spotify) come from the influence of label control over the company (and industry). Songs that appear or can be heard near or in sequence of each other to an end user are not really that random.
We as consumers forget that the entirety of Spotify is a heavily curated experience. This includes the features available to us on various devices which directly impact how and what (pod casts) we can listen to and when (free tier on mobile)
I've always thought Spotify could be the Steam of music: To bring artists and listeners together, but I now believe Bandcamps done more in that regard and Spotify might end up being a data harvesting tool for the labels.
Is there a reason these companies are actively against independent artists being able to upload the music directly?
[1](https://9to5google.com/2019/04/03/google-play-music-shutdown...)