[EDIT – this post is a couple of years out of date – for a more recent appraisal of where I stand with Spotify, see Why I’ve Taken My Music Off Spotify]
There’s been loads of discussion of late about what Spotify are up to – in connection with both their extraordinary growth, and the prospect of an iPhone app in the near future.
Much has been made of the fact that, as the calculations stand, no artists are going to make any sensible money out of it at all. They’ve done an insane deal with the major record labels, giving them an 11% share in the platform, as an incentive to sign up their catalogues. Clearly no-one here is really thinking about the artists on those labels making any money…
So does this mean that Spotify are bastards? (we already know the major record labels are all bastards – that doesn’t even need discussing 😉 ) – no, it means that they are a business – they had a plan for a service, no apparent pre-arranged funding model beyond trying to make it work – ad-funded music has been touted for a long time, no-one else had yet come up with either
- a deal that was appealing enough to the companies or
- a UI that was pleasant enough for users.
Spotify solved both of those. So what of the not getting paid thing.
Here’s the deal – the internet is not divided into clear-cut heroes and villains. Yes it would be great if there were app-developing caped crusaders coding til their fingers bleed to make the web a more profitable place for indie artists. And it would be great if we could all agree that Sony/News Corp/RIAA etc. were such monoliths of evil intention that everyone but the kind of acts that were happy to play Sun City in Apartheid-era South Africa would refuse to have anything to do with them.
But it’s not like that, and we’re pragamatists. Before we start making money, we need an audience. And to find an audience we need to get heard. And to be heard, our music needs to be out there where people are listening to it. So right now, we have the choice to make it available on Spotify/Myspace/Reverb Nation/iLike/Facebook etc for no meaningful financial compensation (ReverbNation currently owe me $22 as my part of their revenue sharing scheme! Yay!), or we stick with the old school route and
- co-ordinate a combined radio and press campaign,
- getting pluggers,
- designers,
- ad agents,
- distributors
- oh go on, throw in video directors as well
…and we’re back to being a hundred grand in debt before the records out.
That Spotify isn’t paying us is a pain in the arse. Yes, the guy that started it is probably going to get rich. But right now, I’m not losing anything through it. The people listening to me on Spotify are almost all doing so cos I sent them the link. They are people I’d previously sent last.fm or Myspace links to but Spotify is easier, it’s familiar, it’s where they are listening right now. And my music needs to be where their ears are.
So I’m glad it’s not costing me anything. When something better comes along, I’ll happily jump ship. Til then, I’ll keep hassling CDBaby to get my other 3 solo albums onto there, joining Not Dancing For Chicken and the Calamateur Vs Steve Lawson album which are already there.
What is more interesting is what mechanisms are going to be developed for turning Spotify into a music discovery platform. It does have an API, so other people can build things on top of it… What would you like to see possible with Spotify’s music library?
I know, I’m a week late writing about Lily Allen and her attempts to back Peter Mandelson’s campaign to have ‘persistent file sharers’ internet connections taken away. (and in the meantime, she’s taken down her anti-file sharing blog, and allegedly quit music!) 
Ever since the advent of rock and roll and the vinyl record explosion in the 50s, record companies – whose business is making money – have been using music in order to meet that aim.