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Spotify Retreats To Invite-Only In UK

Posted by timothy on from the spot-of-trouble dept.

Barence writes "Music streaming service Spotify has been forced to enact tight restrictions on new members in the UK, and revert back to an invite-only system. The company has decided to take drastic action following the release of its iPhone and Android apps earlier this week, which have created 'huge demand in the UK,' according to Spotify. People who don't want to put their hand in their pocket and don't have any friends can sign up to a waiting list instead."

13 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Spotify by sopssa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The good thing is that Spotify premium (9euro/month) really isn't a lot for the service they provide. Since an year ago that I started using Spotify it's been pretty much my only music player. Now that they're getting the mobile clients out too its just getting better (also Symbian version coming soon, now just windows mobile!).

    And like with every Spotify news here, for those who are going to ask why spotify is supposedly so much better than last.fm or pandora or other web radios. Spotify isn't a radio. It's more like a huge music library where you can search for any song and listen to them as you please. If you like to, you can even just repeat one song all the time. It's more like your WinAmp or other music player, just that the music is streamed and you have access to huge amount of songs.

    Their technology seems to work great too. When you select a new song it starts playing *right away*. Just like listening from your own hard drive. The UI is simple and lightweight but still good. You can also easily paste links to songs, albums and playlists. For pretty much everyone I know its became the way to listen to music, and a great way for music labels to kill piracy. Finally a product that is actually better and more convenient than pirating, and I'm happily paying the 9 euros for the premium account.

    As mobile side I'm just waiting for their Windows Mobile client for my HTC. The nice thing is that mobile 3g internet is really cheap here too: unlimited (yes, really) 384 kbit/s is 5e a month, while unlimited 5Mbit/s is 35e a month. Since I have them anyway, I can just stream all the songs normally while sitting in a car or anywhere.

    And yes, its only available in Europe currently. But they plan to launch in USA this year too.

    1. Re:Spotify by Hurricane78 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So it's the media reproduction and artist extortion industry's wet dream: You never actually own anything, and really pay every time you listen to the track. And I still wonder if any of that money is actually going to the artists. Because I think they don't see a cent and that that is the main point over actually selling stuff.

      No thanks. I'd rather die.

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    2. Re:Spotify by sopssa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So it's the media reproduction and artist extortion industry's wet dream: You never actually own anything, and really pay every time you listen to the track.

      It's not a this or that situation. Just like cable channels that you pay monthly payment to show movies, you can still buy them too to actually own them. There's good sides on both; when you buy them, you get the products as your own. When you rent/stream/watch from tv, you dont get to own the products but you can enjoy them then for a lot lower price (or like tv and spotify, for free with ads)

    3. Re:Spotify by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      You never actually own anything, and really pay every time you listen to the track.

      No, you pay once, and then listen to the track as many times as you like. Well, up to the limit of how many minutes there are in a month. So with an song length of say, four minutes, you could play it about eleven thousand times.

      No thanks. I'd rather die.

      Don't worry, you will.

    4. Re:Spotify by beowulfcluster · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And I still wonder if any of that money is actually going to the artists. Because I think they don't see a cent and that that is the main point over actually selling stuff.

      There was an article a few weeks ago about swedish artist Magnus Uggla, who apparently is mad as hell about Spotify and isn't going to take it any longer. The article is here (in Swedish). A summary in english is here.

      Some basics things: Uggla, who's a reasonably big artist in Sweden, made as much from Spotify as he claims an average busker in the street makes in a day. Sony has bought 6% of Spotify, valued at 2 billion SEK for 30,000 SEK. His conclusion for why Spotify would agree to that deal is that Sony in return lets Spotify get their artists on the cheap. In other words, Sony makes money, the artists do not.

      In the swedish article Hasse Breiholtz of Sony Sweden defends the arrangement by saying that Spotify wouldn't exist if the artists would get paid better for now. He says you have to give the legal services a chance to establish themselves first, and later raise the fees to a level where the artists get fairly compensated.

    5. Re:Spotify by WidgetGuy · · Score: 4, Informative

      9EUR a month is reasonable? That's $13USD per month! I pay just $37USD per year (about $3USD per month) for Pandora Premium (which provides a 192Kbps stream via the nifty new Adobe AIR-based player).

      Pandora listeners can ask for a particular song to be included in a playlist (station) but what I really like about it is that we don't have to. I set up a new station by seeding it with song titles or artist names as exemplars. Pandora runs with that and puts together a song list for me. I can "reshape" any of my stations at any time by adding other song or artist exemplars (or by removing exemplars). I did this just recently by adding Ruby and the Romantics as an exemplar to my "oldies" station. Now, I'm being (re-)exposed to a wide variety of records from the 1950's and 1960's made by black vocal groups (so-called "race records"). Forgot how good that stuff was!

      With Pandora, I don't have to build a playlist song-by-song and I like it that way. Pandora will suggest music from genre Y that their algorithms tell them might be enjoyable to someone who listens to genre X by playing songs of genre Y from time to time. If the algorithm screws up, all I have to do is click the "thumbs down" icon and the premium player smoothly fades out and goes to the next song. I will never hear that song again on that station. This approach gently exposes one to new artists and related musical genres. I would never have heard of the Mexican acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela or a rock group from Nashville called The Addiction had I not been introduced to them by Pandora's algorithms. And I would have been the poorer for it.

      Even better is that, for your $3USD per month, you get a company that clearly values (because it listens to) its listeners. Almost exactly one year ago, when it looked like they might have to shut down because the RIAA wanted to charge them twice what they were charging broadcast radio stations to play songs, I wrote them and offered my support. I'd been using the free version until then and didn't have any particular reason to "go premium" (they didn't have the new Adobe AIR premium player at that time). So, even though I wasn't sure they'd be around for another year, I bought an annual premium subscription as a show of support. Apparently, the CEO saw my email because they sent me a very nice email in return offering me some free Pandora swag -- whether or not I actually subscribed. I did, of course, and the swag arrived promptly with a very nice personal note of thanks from the company's CEO.

      Just recently (about a month ago), I wrote them again, this time asking for a feature to be added to the new premium player. In the first version of the player, the user had no control over where on the screen the player would pop up when launched form the desktop (or OS start up) -- a small thing, to be sure, but important to one whose desktop is as organized (i.e., cluttered) as is mine. They acknowledged my request promptly with an email that strongly indicated they'd not only actually read my entire missive but that they had understood my request (that's unusual in and of itself). They promised my request was in the feature queue but couldn't tell me when it would appear in the product. A month later the first update to the premium player was released and guess what? When launched from the desktop (or during OS start up) the premium player now appears on the screen in the position the user had last placed it during the previous session. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who requested that feature, but you gotta admit that type of response is pretty hard to find these days.

      I don't work for Pandora or any company affiliated with Pandora. I'm just a very satisfied customer.

      --
      One "Aw, Shit!" is worth 100 "Ata boys!"
    6. Re:Spotify by nausicaa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm surprised they haven't done so allready..

      In the begining there were no region restrictions, and among the tracks in my playlists I had a bunch of asian tracks.. Now, the asian tracks I've found are either classical music performed by asian musicians, or chinese pop.. Actually, I think I found some soundtrack for some Filipino movie, but there are no Japanese or Korean tracks (non-classical) that I can find..

      According to Spotify, no tracks have been removed, but labels have insisted on regions, and if it's not available in Asia, I have to wonder who gets to listen to those tracks. Along with some US-released tracks that were removed from my playlists..

      Regions are a thing of the past; I want to listen to what I want, not what labels think I should listen to.

      This is, however, along with the absence of certain big acts, not Spotify's fault..

      (I'm in Sweden)

  2. This is a good thing... by node+3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This type of problem should be seen as a good thing, and provide a clue for the music labels. They already serve the public when it comes to purchasing music with CDs and DRM-free downloads (finally!). Now they have an opportunity to serve the public with streaming music.

    They tried something similar with rentals, but people don't really seem to like it that much. Streaming (for a fee) is a *lot* like renting, but since you never have the music on your hard drive or media player, it doesn't feel like you're losing anything once the subscription expires. Mixing owned and rented music doesn't seem to be that desirable. But with the clear demarcation between owned and streamed, it's much more enticing.

    I know I'd prefer to stream than to rent. Hopefully the labels will see this as an opportunity, and not a threat, and bring this to the US.

    Yeah, I know, placing hope on the intelligence of the music industry is a recipe for disappointment, but what the hell, right?

    1. Re:This is a good thing... by sopssa · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, the big labels are shareholders on Spotify so they do have seen the opportunity.

      Shareholders in Spotify on 10/7 2009
      Bolag Andel Rosello (Lorentzon) 28,6%
      Instructus (Ek) 23,3%
      Northzone Ventures 11,9%
      Enzymix Systems (F. HagnÃ) 5,8%
      Sony BMG 5,8%
      Universal Music 4,8%
      Warner Music 3,8%
      Wellington IV Tech 3,8%
      Creandum II LP 3,5%
      Swiftic (Strigéus) 2,6%
      Creandum II KB 2,4%
      EMI 1,9%
      Merlin 1,0%
      SBH Capital (B. HagnÃ) 0,8%

      Also: "The service is not currently available in the United States or Canada. Spotify Founder, Daniel Ek, has expressed a desire to change this. It is expected that Spotify will be available in the United States before the end of 2009.[20]"

    2. Re:This is a good thing... by sopssa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      However by far they seem to be happy.

      Spotify makes more cash for Universal than iTunes

      Universal Music Sweden has admitted that Spotify makes it more money than iTunes does. "In five months from the launch, Spotify became our largest digital source of income and so passed by iTunes", said Per Sundin, managing director of Universal Music.

      "It's a fantastic development, explained by the fact that Spotify really has exploded", he added. The admission brings with it a whole host of questions - none of which we have many answers to. How much is Spotify paying the labels? Could this be why the iPhone app still hasn't been approved? Does this validate ad-funded music as a business model?

      The interesting thing will be how it works on US market however. They can potentially get a lot more from advertising in USA than in Sweden, but is USA itself got so used to iTunes and such that it will hurt the sales and labels? However, Spotify is a perfect way to turn those pirating and "sending mp3's to friends in msn" to customers you can get income from, even if its in form of ads revenue.

    3. Re:This is a good thing... by Xerfas · · Score: 4, Informative

      Good thing about Spotify mobile is that you can sync your music to the phone, so that you don't need to be online all the time. This is great when I take the train to work where 3G connection is lost all the time. I sync the music I like over wifi on the morning and then I got hundreds of new songs to listen too when I go to work and while working. 9e/month is less then what I would have paid for in the itunes store. I can definetly recommend this app to all music lovers who own an Android or iPhone 3G/3GS.

    4. Re:This is a good thing... by sopssa · · Score: 3, Informative

      Premium is available in other countries too

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spotify_Availability.png
      Dark green: Ad-supported and Premium
      Light green: Premium

      Why ad-supported is not available everywhere is probably just that they havent got ad deals in those countries yet. Spotify is still invite only and beta after all.

  3. Re:Is it just me by teslar · · Score: 3, Informative

    I can sort of appreciate the utility of the free, ad supported version but why in the hell would you pay a monthly subscription for access to music when:

    a). you can only play it through spotify and lose access as and when you stop renewing your monthly subscription (as I understand it)

    Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You have a huge catalogue of movies at your fingertips - as long as you pay for the right. I don't find the idea of paying a small fee to have a lot of content accessible pretty much whenever you want (as opposed to when the tv channels (movies) or radio (music) decides to play it) that outrageous.

    b). you have to surrender your bandwidth not only for streaming songs (although I think it does make use of a local cache) but also as a node in the spotify p2p network

    I don't think this is relevant. I don't notice any bandwidth-problems at all. Maybe it would have been a point 10 years ago, but today, when my friends laugh at me for "only" having a 12Mbit connection, I don't think we need to worry about that.

    c). you don't get access to some mega bands (e.g. Metallica, ACDC, Pink Floyd etc.)

    Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You don't have every movie ever made available, but you don't expect that either. The point is that you do have a lot available - when you want it. If you really want to listen to Metallica, buy their CDs or wait for the Spotify catalogue to grow.

    Noone said Spotify would be the alpha and omega of all your music needs. It just provides a large catalogue for you - either for free, or for a small fee (for which you also get better sound quality btw, 320kb/s instead if 160kb/s if you wish). If a song you want to listen to is not on there, or if you really want to own it so you can listen to it everywhere, noone's stopping you from buying the CD.

    Personally, I use the free version (for now). I like the idea that I have a lot of the music I listen to available and that I can listen to it at work. I like the fact that if a friend recommends a band to me, I can more often than not just check it out immediately.