ADM Says Video Mocking Them Is Copyright Infringement; Abuses Copyright Law To Stifle Free Speech

Is Spotify Looking To Enable CwF+RtB For Musicians?

from the that-would-be-cool dept

Fri, Feb 5th 2010 5:13am — Mike Masnick

There's been plenty of buzz around Spotify, the online music service that is available in Europe, but not in the US. Having played with the product, it's really nicely done, but there's always been a huge concern over whether or not there's a real business model there. The record labels have been notorious for burdening any useful startup with ridiculous licensing terms that make it close to impossible for any such business to survive (let alone profit). Spotify had said it was going to launch in the US, but hasn't been able to, and while the company keeps saying it's close, other reports suggest that the major labels still haven't reached agreements with the company.

However, what's much more interesting is this interview with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, where he suggests the company wants to branch out well beyond the subscription/ad-based business models and start enabling musicians to offer other business models that sound an awful lot like the CwF+RtB business model we talk about here:

"We want a platform where we can [allow] lots and lots of experimentation. We don't know what will work for an individual artist. Some will benefit from scarcity. Some will benefit from it being widely available, even free. They might make their money by giving away all their music for free ... In the best of world, Spotify will become the platform where you manage your music and because you do that, we will figure out what kinds of offerings you're interested in. For certain types of artists, you might be interested in something unique. You might do a meet-and-greet. It might be that you want it on vinyl because it feels better. Or just go and see the show. Or have the merchandise."

Who knows if Spotify can pull it off (and if it will build this itself, or partner to do so), but this is a much more ambitious play than what's been talked about in the past, and while it's risky, seems like a much better long-term bet.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: business models, cwf, music, rtb, spotify
Companies: spotify

22 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

The Anti-Mike (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 5:41am

I would say they have probably realized that piracy is such a big deal that being in the "music selling business" is an unworkable business model.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
SteveHedberg, 5 Feb 2010 @ 6:14am

I would have to respectably disagree that selling music is an unworkable business model The Anti-Mike.

When you look at the success of NIN or Steam or iTunes or even, to a lesser extent, Netflix, people have shown time and time again that they don't mind paying for content. However, it is important that the content is reasonably priced, easy to get, and DRM matters. Perhaps the old way that the RIAA and MPAA seem to cling to is unworkable, but selling music is far from dead...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2010 @ 6:43am

Re:
Yeah! Now you're getting it!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 6:47am

Re:
It's amusing that you say this in response to the article that starts by noting that Americans are currently not allowed to access the service in question. Withholding music from potential customers is a great way to prevent them from buying it, but the "pirates" have no problem servicing this demand. Don't service the demand and you don't get paid - simple. They don't get to create problems for customers and then complain that they didn't get paid - not servicing demand is a death sentence in any industry.

To give a recent personal example: I heard a snippet of the theme to the original Hitchhiker's Guide TV series (Journey Of The Sorcerer by The Eagles) and I thought it would be nice to have it on my iPod Touch. I fired it up, accessed the store and saw... the song isn't there. In fact, no classic Eagles is available to me. I would have checked another store, say Amazon or Play, but the record industry won't allow them to sell to me because I'm in the "wrong" country.

That's what's killing the industry. Had I been able to satisfy my immediate demand, I would have been happy and the label would have made a sale. Whatever the reason for them not offering me the album, be it in my region or in any region, they lost a sale. I bet that the Pirate Bay would have had no problem supplying the album to me if I'd have gone there...

This is the outdated thinking that's killing them. They probably expect me to buy a CD, but I'm sure as hell not buying a full album just for one song. It's not "piracy" that's killing the industry, it's the business model. Even if I had decided to pirate the song, it would have been their blockade that cost them the sale, not the evil "pirates".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Anti-Mike (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 7:12am

More thoughts on this...
I can't help but think that various services are trying to position themselves as "friends of the bands", while really just trying to come up with a way to get a cut of the action.

Imagine that you take each of the pieces that the labels provide, from management, promotion, booking, inventory control, distribution, image, representation, local, regional, and national contacts, etc... you break each one of them off as a separate business. Now the artists end up contracting each of those pieces out to various companies at a cost, potentially higher because each of these companies has to make a profit on each piece, not on the overall.

So if you look at things, it would appear that the artists make more money (because the income is paid to them, not a label), but they end up spending all that money (and more, because they would have to spend money to make money, not the other way around). So a band might have to max out their credit cards or mortgage their homes in order to afford to buy services.

What spotify appears to be doing is trying to position themselves to get a nice piece of the "CwF" style action, and potential in the long run becoming as much of a drag on things as a label might be, without having to finance anything up front.

Good move for them, but is it really a good move for artists?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lachlan Hunt (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 7:40am

Yes, Spotify has a lot of benefits, but they are not without problems. The major problem I have with it, and why I cancelled my subscrption to it, was because the use DRM and force you to apply software upgrades as soon as they're released by not letting you play your music until you do. On mobile devices, where you don't always have access to wifi connections or good mobile data plans, this is not always convenient, and I got screwed over by this policy once already.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
RD, 5 Feb 2010 @ 7:44am

Exactly
"It's amusing that you say this in response to the article that starts by noting that Americans are currently not allowed to access the service in question. Withholding music from potential customers is a great way to prevent them from buying it, but the "pirates" have no problem servicing this demand. Don't service the demand and you don't get paid - simple. They don't get to create problems for customers and then complain that they didn't get paid - not servicing demand is a death sentence in any industry."

Excellent, and this point should be RAMMED up the ass of the Big Media and TAM and his trolling ilk. If they dont get this idea, then they DONT GET TO WHINE LIKE A BABY about "piracy." FIRST service the market demand, THEN we can talk about the impact of "piracy" (which is far, far less than TAM and his corporate masters would try to have us believe).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Anti-Mike (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 7:47am

Re: Exactly
you forgot about that "reply to this comment" link again.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
RD, 5 Feb 2010 @ 7:50am

Ok...
"Imagine that you take each of the pieces that the labels provide, from management, promotion, booking, inventory control, distribution, image, representation, local, regional, and national contacts, etc... you break each one of them off as a separate business. Now the artists end up contracting each of those pieces out to various companies at a cost, potentially higher because each of these companies has to make a profit on each piece, not on the overall.

So if you look at things, it would appear that the artists make more money (because the income is paid to them, not a label), but they end up spending all that money (and more, because they would have to spend money to make money, not the other way around). So a band might have to max out their credit cards or mortgage their homes in order to afford to buy services."

Fair enough, and a reasonable argument. However, the 2 big points you gloss over (ie. ignore) and that has been brought up NUMEROUS times to you in these arguments are:

1) The big issue isnt that a "label" (or production) is needed, but that they take EVERYTHING from the artist, including their copyright, and rarely pay anything back. So, yes, there is a place for a label (Mike has pointed this out REPEATEDLY) but it shoulnt be to completely rape the artist (as you advocate).

2) Selling things on plastic discs as the ONLY method of attaining the product is going away, and the labels/industry needs to explore other options. LEVERAGING the internet (and "free", the idea of which seems to short-circuit your brain) is going to become de facto, and the labels can lead, follow, or get out of the way. It WILL happen, legally or not, whether they want it to or not. The question is (and has been): ARE they going to do anything with it? OR are they just going to resort to lawsuits when their current methods get supplanted by the newer ones? Guess which road they have taken so far.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
RD, 5 Feb 2010 @ 8:00am

Re: Re: Exactly
"you forgot about that "reply to this comment" link again."

Oh! Sorry, forgot you have to be spoon-fed like a little baby in order to use these forums...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PaulT (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 8:04am

Re:
Since Spotify is a streaming service, I don't have a problem with DRM (one of the very few cases where I don't). You're essentially renting the music, so DRM does have a place unlike in cases where you're supposedly buying it.

As for the forced upgrades, it might be annoying but it certainly beats the service getting compromised due to buggy software and it will probably happen less as their software matures.

"On mobile devices, where you don't always have access to wifi connections or good mobile data plans, this is not always convenient"

I don't know what phone you had, but on the iPhone it's certainly possible to download an app that lets you store the music offline.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Anti-Mike (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 8:11am

Re: Ok...
mumble mumble NUMEROUS mumble mumble REPEATLY mumble mumble LEVERAGING
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Fredrik Ekman, 5 Feb 2010 @ 8:15am

So interesting to read this! Why? A person from the Spotify team visited my class while Spotify was still in beta in the spring of 2008 (do not quote me, but I think he was the brand manager).

When he asked for a band (to demonstrate the service) I instantly responsed Nine Inch Nails since I adored their compete with free model for Ghosts I-IV which was in the buzz back then. So we got to hear Sin from the AATCHB live album.

I later asked how Spotify's business model actually work and how it will benefit the artist, since there is no opportunity to connect with fans (the only opportunity for monetization is 1,000,000s of songs played). The answer, which has probably changed a little bit, was that the "connect with fans" opportunity already exists on other platforms and will become better and better, while Spotify can focus on what they do best. Makes sense.

As a NIN fan, building the hype around CwF + RtB, and being a Swedish citizen building the hype around Spotify being the future of recorded music, I'm still eager to see NINs and Spotify's models getting closer to each other. That's why I'm still a little bit annoyed over the Null Corp. recordings not being available in Spotify.

Thanks for writing a very interesting blog, btw
[ link to this | view in thread ]
:), 5 Feb 2010 @ 8:35am

Have CC SA
If not that is not a service I'm interested on.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
anti anti mike, 5 Feb 2010 @ 8:49am

maybe you should consider it ant imike
yea know cause i have buds that i help promote and guess what they actually give there tunes out free and make a buck off the touring

YUP aint that special
[ link to this | view in thread ]
kirillian (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 9:03am

Re: More thoughts on this...
I agree that it would be a concern; however, I don't think they would be the first company to screw artists...in fact, I don't think you are being fair as the current labels are not nearly as artist-friendly as you make them out to be.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike Masnick (profile), 5 Feb 2010 @ 12:53pm

Re:
I would say they have probably realized that piracy is such a big deal that being in the "music selling business" is an unworkable business model

And you *almost* have it figured out. I'm so proud of you! I've been saying for years that the "music selling business" is a bad business model, and that's why I recommend better business models. It's not because of "piracy" though, that has contributed to it.

So glad you've finally come around and are a supporter of better business models. You might want to finally change your moniker though.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Feb 2010 @ 11:03am

Re:
What about those who, in light of the recording industry's antics, simply stopped consuming music? No legal purchasing and no illegal downloading.

I used to purchase music and listen to it but now I don't.

Looks like, in my case, the music selling business failed. Fancy that.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
jarvis (profile), 19 Feb 2010 @ 7:21am

Hands down - Grooveshark!
I feel duped that Spotify took my money for adfree music. I now use Grooveshark on icloud for free with NO audio ads.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anne Mulligan, 20 Aug 2011 @ 3:13pm

As a music buyer I like Spotify, but I think indie artists on Spotify get paid peanuts for streaming plays of their music. It's not like they can afford to buy silver after cashing in their spotify royalty checks. They can make some serious coin selling mp3 downloads with iTunes though.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
lrobbo (profile), 12 Jun 2012 @ 10:01am

Better off going long term, always.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Cameraman Sydney, 4 Oct 2012 @ 2:19pm

Grooveshark
Grooveshark all the way in my opinion!

Cameraman in Sydney
[ link to this | view in thread ]