If you have watched recent music and internet news, you will see the storm that has ensued as Taylor Swift has removed all of her music from Spotify.
Spotify has two different scenarios available to their users; one is paid and one is free. Swift’s new record ‘1989’ is now on the shelves, but can be streamed on the paid/subscription part of Spotify, not the free version. This was in response to Ms. Swift feeling that she would earn enough through the royalty rate Spotify pays.
Nikki Sixx had this to say on his Facebook page about the entire scenario, “A lot of artists are talking about Spotify right now and some might say it’s because they have new albums out. It could also be considered a new marketing tool, because, to be honest with you, it gets picked up a lot in the press.” The founding Motley Crue founder went on to say, “A big unaddressed issue (and more important, in my opinion) is that artists aren’t getting paid because of the term ‘breakage.’ That’s where the record companies have equity or take advances from the different streaming companies and never recoup them. Thus never paying the Bono’s, Taylor’s, Dave’s and many many more. These artists should really be talking about that. But I think they may know, or are afraid that their labels (or distribution companies) won’t promote them if they tell that dirty little secret.”
The plight of the record business is still in full-swing and it’s not yet determined what the solution will be. It’s hard to tell what will be the catalyst (or lack thereof) to turn things around in the future. What do you think of Spotify and the streaming service?
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