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Who Killed Spotify?
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that ad-supported music service Spotify is bringing strict limits to its service, allowing users ten hours listening time per month and a lifetime total of five plays per track. Rory Cellan-Jones discusses how much their hand was forced by the labels, and how much it was down to their own desire to move more than the current 15% of users to their paid subscriptions. The overwhelming reaction from users seems to be straightforward disappointment at the loss of a service which managed to bridge the commercial radio business model and modern listening habits. As the first response to the announcement said: 'So long Spotify. It was nice knowing you. Guess I'll go back to pirating music again then.'"
Limits to its free service, not to Spotify in general. I've been a paying subscriber for a while and it's fine.
Must admit though that I cancelled my subscription last week. Wasn't anything wrong with the service, which is a good one, was simply that I found I wasn't using it nearly as much as I thought I might.
Cheers,
Ian
I never even tried free version of Spotify. I don't like commercials, but biggest reason was that with premium account (10€/month) i have better bitrate, great mobile client and offline listening.
After just few weeks of using Sporify, i deleted my MP3 collection. This is first time i ever pay for music.
...When after all, it was you and me.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
I can't see how people can be upset about this. The Spotify social feature is awesome, and if you skip one lunch out per month, you've paid for the subscription.
Meep.
Guess I'll go back to pirating music again then
I know this attitude well. Being Canadian, it's even worse here.
I try to buy media, and would love to be able to legitimately buy various movies and TV shows online, but thanks to the CBC/CRTC, they can't be made available here thanks to some very backwards and broken laws.
So you browse say, netflix or itunes (ugh.. but meh). Find something you want. Money (figuratively) sitting in my pocket, theirs for the taking .. NOPE! DON'T WANT IT! But please stop pirating because it's costing us money! Oh, here is a show made in the 80's with a 1 and a half star rating who's title contains one word from your query.. THAT we can give you! *froths at mouth*
It only costs £4.99 a month for the Unlimited subscription and this comes with the added bonus of no adverts. The kind of people who say 'So long Spotify. It was nice knowing you' are the kind of people who don't want to pay for music. That's their choice of course, but what did they expect? Spotify's price is pretty low and their product is pretty good. The 'free' side of their business doesn't seem sustainable in the long term and I'd rather they focussed on maintaining a sustainable service. And, you know, if you really don't want to pay for music you still don't have to but your free lunch just got smaller. Bummer.
That is just ridicilous. In Norwegian money, one month of spotify membership costs less than a beer bought at a pub*: and the amount of music you have available is excellent. If they really want the radio model with advertisements and a fixed playlist - listen to a goddamn radio station. Spotify is something completely different - you have full controll over what you are listening to.
*That is for the least expensive option, where you do not have the option to use it on mobile devices. For double this, or about one and a half beer you get the added possibility of installing the spotify application on mobile devices; including offline storage to not tax your wireless data plan.
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
A monthly $7 (translated from the swedish montly of 49 kronor, not sure what they charge in other countries) isn't that much for the kickass musicservice that is Spotify. What didn't the storage cost ppl when they had their mp3 collections? And the time spent searching and downloading?
Spotify is fast, has a silly amount of music, has good song/playlist sharing functions and new songs start instantly. I wish they had increased the commercials instead of limiting the time for the free accounts.. but still, it doesn't cost that much compared to what you get.
Tried some Grooveshark yesterday when I got this news.. it's not close to as polished as Spotify. Missing songs, you wait for them to start etc.
Have huge sales all the time at rock bottom prices and you will see a increase in sales even when prices return to list price. Everyone knows they can make as many copies of the mp3 files as they want for no cost so music companies are practicing bad business.
Up until April 12 2010 Last fm also used to provide free music radios but then they also limited number of free tracks. I hate this, when I get used to one service and then I have to discontinue using that service simply because there would be some other music service out there on the internet which is free. e.g. grooveshark
As a Canadian I can understand this argument.
I try very hard to pay for all my media.... but man is it hard. Thanks to some very broken laws and the CBC/CRTC, most content can't be offered in Canada for online download. So you find something you want... money sitting in your pocket (figuratively), theirs for the taking... but nope, they can't take it... but they can sell you something made in the 80's with a 1 star rating! Oh but please stop pirating because it's costing us revenue!
So your choice is basically:
- go to the store.. buy the DVD (assuming they even have it in stock and not in blueray).. go home.. rip it onto your computer (which is where you wanted it to begin with)
- download it and be watching in ~half hour
Relying on people to choose the morally correct option over the sane and easier one is a really bad business model!
but thanks to the CBC/CRTC, they can't be made available here thanks to some very backwards and broken laws.
The movie studios will be happy to take your money once you vote in a Parliament that will repeal "some very backwards and broken laws." It's like voting with your wallet, only the other way around.
In most businesses, there is a tipping point at which consumers will slow their buying habits. What recording execs consistently fail to understand is that in the music business there is a tipping point at which consumers go away forever and don't come back.
The record labels need to remember that the option confronting users is on the one hand a model like Spotify -- and on the other hand, free (as in, I'll just bring a 2TB drive over to my friends house and get a lifetime worth of free music).
The belief that this can, or will ever be stopped is what consistently drives them to idiotic regulations which destroy their own business.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
In short, copyright infringement is illegal and wrong no matter how you try to justify it.
You're half right, at least. I would argue that the baby-dancing-to-music videos are not wrong, despite being (arguably) copyright infringement. I would also argue that ripping my DVDs, which I've legally purchased, to my computer is not wrong. Illegal and immoral do not go hand-in-hand.
The morality of copyright infringement is not a simple subject. It's idiotic to just say that it's always wrong, and expect the argument to stop there.
What if none of the money ever goes back to the original artist? What if the money never can, because the artist is long dead? What if the license for the media is held by an organisation that has no purpose other than to make money and prevent media from ever entering the public domain?
Sure, you could just avoid all contact with whatever the media in question is, but in such a circumstance, where's the harm in piracy? Who is hurt by it?
It's not simple. Don't pretend it is.
You can rip blueray just as well, drives are not that expensive these days.
1) The existing distribution system failed, and ceded electronic sales to 1 party: Apple.
Once all the other minor players are killed off Apple will eat the RIAA.
2) The paid distribution model is doomed in any case.
Drive away enough customers and they will find other things to do, other places to get music, and, most importantly,
they will ignore your promotions.
Once the consumers dictate the fashion, the distributors become irrelevant.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
I really love Spotify, especially the social aspects. Playlists URIs, collaborative playlists etc. are really great.
But as a paying subscriber I really hate it everytime a song gets disabled from my playlists because of the label's greed. I've been paying more to the music industry the past year compared to the last ten years, but it's still not enough.
.: Max Romantschuk
Give us a product we're willing to pay for, and package it in forms that we want, and we'll probably pay for it.
Otherwise: Fuck you. You can't stop the signal, no matter how hard you try. We'll all go back to sharing mix tapes if that's what it takes, or recording off the radio. You will NEVER be able to close the analog gap. You will NEVER be able to create any form of DRM that can't be cracked in a matter of hours or days. You will NEVER be able to stop the sale of used media. You will NEVER be able to prevent people from loaning and borrowing CDs from friends. Give it up. Change, or die.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Like Spotify, Rdio has a pricing model where they charge more if the endpoint is a phone. This makes no sense to me whatsoever and reminds me of the bad old days when cable tv companies wanted you to buy a separate subscription for each television set.
For Rdio, I can tether my laptop to my phone and listen for $5 / month. Great! If, however, I wanted the phone to be the endpoint, they double the price. I can understand there are costs associated with producing a mobile app, but I would rather they just charge for the app rather than double the monthly fee. Bastards.
I do subscribe to Pandora though. $36 / year is about the right price for me, plus their client is built into my television and my receiver.
Spotify is the best service I ever used. I got it on my android phone, can sync 3000+ songs for offline use. I can use the native linux-client, I got it at work on my windows box. The only thing I miss is an ARM version for my Sheeva-plug. It can import my local music library. All this for 10€ a month. What else could I want?
I'm looking for the same service for video but can't find it.
The Romans killed Jesus...
Somewhat true, but it would be more accurate to say that the Roman Empire killed Jesus. (For bonus points, the government of one outpost of the Roman Empure killed Jesus)
...but the Jews condemned him.
Wrong. A few Jews in small region condemned him, perhaps even limited to one very small sect of them. All Jews didn't condemn Jesus (he was Jewish, as were many of his followers, he was basically advocating Judaism 2.0 at the time, this was changed after his death to a "revolution" by catering to the Greeks), probably most Jews of the time never even heard of him, or didn't really care one bit what he was saying since he was just one "messiah" among many at the time.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
You have no entitlement to receive a given piece of entertainment exactly how you want it when you want it.
Agreed, which is why as said in my post.. I pay for my media (except in a select few circumstances). The people who make the media do have the right to sell it in whatever messed up way they want... and people don't have some entitlement to it. That said, considering how blatenly simple it is to pirate media... and how painful it is to actually pay for it... it boggles my mind why anyone things this is a good idea. Big media should stop whining about Canadians pirating and go after the CBC/CRTC who won't let them sell to a large audience who is willing to spend the money!
The best way to get music is still to buy used CDs, rip them, and stick the CD in a closet. Typical used prices are ~$3 per album, which is way cheaper than buying individual songs online as long as you aren't just interested in a single one on the disc. Plus, there is no DRM so you can easily move the stuff you purchased to wherever is most convenient for you. Plus, it is higher quality than almost everything you can buy online. Plus, if you decide you don't like the album anymore you can just delete the files and resell it to get your money back.
Yes, the CD is still king.
It's a far better service!
This is blinging
did it!
Uh... Kristin Shepard?
Jesus killed himself and set up the evidence against both the Jews and the Romans, to test our faith.......like dinosaurs.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
They started it in the form of radio, which was seen as essentially advertising, and then became payola (pay to play). They were paying stations to play things they wanted us to buy!
Free music has become a lifestyle, and they started it. I'm just playing along. What's the difference between turning on the radio and hearing a song, and having it on my hard drive on-demand? Nothing I say.
The Romans killed Jesus...
Somewhat true, but it would be more accurate to say that the Roman Empire killed Jesus. (For bonus points, the government of one outpost of the Roman Empure killed Jesus)
...but the Jews condemned him.
Wrong. A few Jews in small region condemned him, perhaps even limited to one very small sect of them. All Jews didn't condemn Jesus (he was Jewish, as were many of his followers, he was basically advocating Judaism 2.0 at the time, this was changed after his death to a "revolution" by catering to the Greeks), probably most Jews of the time never even heard of him, or didn't really care one bit what he was saying since he was just one "messiah" among many at the time.
Yes, but who shot first?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
The difference comes down to control. The labels want control of what songs are played and when. They don't have that control over the mp3's on your hardrive.
...to stop piracy, let's treat our customers who access our product legally terrible and blame the dirty pirates! Surely this will turn public opinion against them. It's the pirates' fault we can't have nice things.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Since you are forced to pay a tax on blank media to support the music and movie industry, I would personally cease to buy any TV, music or movies from that point on and make full use of the license you cannot opt out of and are forced to pay. Buy a CD? That's worth 100 movie downloads, easy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well Spotify isn't available in Canada so I guess that this particular excuse doesn't apply for this poster.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I must say I am surprised to read this. I use free spotify daily here in Sweden and I have not seen any of that except for a 20 (yes, twenty) hours limit for the OPEN version of Spotify. The version I use is the FREE one, which requires an invitation and has no such limits, at least not yet.
Yell and stomp your feet all you want, nothing will come of it.
The point of DRM is to make it sufficiently hard to violate copyright. That's all.
Breakable DRM is a balancing act between looking the other way while entertainment media is distributed as a kind of loss leader, and generating sufficient fear that the RIAA will litigate you for violating copyright.
They don't need to change, they know what you like and have copyright and intellectual property law on their side. Meanwhile your right to repurpose your content has been sodomized with set top boxes. And you like it that way.
Until you stop feeding the RIAA members your money, nothing is going to stop them.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It was a suicide...
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
mod +5 lolocaust
Bot Assisted Blogging
...and that word is Grooveshark. That is all.
I don't feed the RIAA. I buy used CD's instead of new, resorting to new only when I can't find it used, and I'd buy new direct from the artists if more of them would offer their work that way. I'm sure if the RIAA had their way, they'd change the rules so that you only buy a "license" to listen to the CD, not the CD itself, and make it illegal to sell or even give the CD to someone else.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I'm not going to repeat myself; go read some of my replies to other people's comments instead.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Where's the harm in piracy? Who is hurt by it?
Either the descendants of the creator who might collect any payments or sell the rights to a corporation, or the shareholders of a corporation who own the rights to the content. Granted, it's not easy to feel moral outrage for these kind of rightsholders, given that the actual creator of the work often does not see much, if any, remuneration after the initial creation and/or sale of the work, but if you believe in intellectual property and that it should be treated the same as any other property (a different debate in and of itself), it is taking some amount of profit from the rightsholders and, legally speaking, it is little better than theft.
But, as you state, it's not simple. If you're looking for a rational justification in the downloading of copyrighted material, you must come at it from the viewpoint that either intellectual property or property as a whole is a specious concept, or that intellectual property cannot be stolen (and, if so, why have the notion that it's property in the first place), or that the laws surrounding copyright are so onerous that you are participating in civil disobedience to protest them. Otherwise, you're just involved in vigilantism (I am striking back for the poor downtrodden artist who the rightsholders are screwing) or theft of property.
That is all.
And I suspect they will not be for a long time. They run a good service and if they what to get rid of a couple of freeloaders, thats their prerogative. They managed to survive on small markets, so there's quite some opportunity. For me, I stopped buying cd's, I stopped searching for music for ages (the top iof the chart is easy to find, but Spotify has all the less well known albums too), so Spotify saves me a lot of money and a lot of time.
I wonder if radio stations have used real people to ascertain the number of listeners who reach for the channel change button (on the remote, or on the steering column, with the mouse or actually getting up and walking over to the radio to push a button) when those fucking Go Compare commercials come on?
Focus groups and the like are one thing, but I was in a taxi the other day and as soon as that commercial came on the driver turned the radio over to another station. I remember because we had a conversation about how some adverts make you flick round the competition even though the intent of the ad is to annoy you into remembering the product.
I'm a bit of a geek (well, duh) and I keep the TV remote in reach at all times so that I can kill the noise when the ads come on. I always mute the TV and when someone (like my Sister) says something like "simples" or "it's not a hen" I have no idea what she is talking about.
Pariah for not being a part of the commercial culture!
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
Free spotify I can just about see the value of: you get a quick and free way to sample music you don't already own (assuming the artist is on the system). But the pro package is basically a system to rent music.... what's the point?? I mean how many worthwhile albums come out each year? Surely you're better off using the free version to check you like something and then, for the few albums you actually end up liking, go buy them off amazon. At least you then end up with an album that's yours to keep forever and do with as you please. Also, if remote streaming is really that fucking important to you, you've got their cloud player as well.
Surely that's better than pissing your money away *renting* music... ???
Yes I did. I've never been to the webpage, or subscribe to it, or used it's services. So it's apparent that my lack of interest killed it off.
Wait, it's not dead? Another stupid article? what a shock.
nm, carry on. Ignore the smoking gun in my hand.
Be seeing you...
It takes all of a couple minutes to open an account on Slashdot, and Anonymous Cowards on Slashdot are usually trolls.
I don't think you read this entire thread or you'd find the answer to your "question" in there. That being said you're sounding a bit like a troll to me.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
"The Jews in the RIAA are killing online music just like they killed Jesus."
And nothing of value was lost.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Very well - done.
I'm not sure how that changes now that there's a username and UID to go with the posts - a subject you didn't address, either as pertaining to myself or pertaining to you, despite feeling so strongly about it - but okay.
On to the meat of the post...
I'm not sure why you're putting quotes there. It's a fairly straightforward question:
Under what terms would you pay - not possibly pay, but would pay - for music?
See previous posts for full details.
You said you gave the answer to that question in (a) reply/replies to other comments. Slashdot's discussion system does odd things now that I have an account, so I went through your posting history instead.
In #35832174 you point out that the current approach of trying to tighten laws by - or have laws written for - the music industry is just pissing people off.
This has no bearing on my question.
In #35832142 you point out that the music industry isn't changing fast enough. You also suggest that artists no longer need to go through record labels, that you have no problem with centralized distribution channels, but that you don't want what's currently happening and that is that said distribution channels are trying to squeeze every penny out of every little thing.
This might have bearing on my question - but there's no details, so I can't be certain.
In #35832034 you suggest that the music industry would love for radio to be moved to a subscription model and point out that this is already failing with regard to satellite radio.
No bearing on my question. Unless part of the answer to my question is "free to receive radio". But in the same post you conclude that with the ability of people having a library of music as large as an average radio station on their iPod, they're not too inclined to be listening to radio in the first place. So I don't know about that one.
In #35832002 you point out that you tend not to buy new CDs where a portion of the money would go to the RIAA. You tend to buy used CDs instead. However, if it can't be found used, you'll sometimes buy new. You'd also buy new if more artists would sell directly.
This largely has bearing on my question - which I already pointed out in my previous comment. Your answer is that you'd be more inclined to buy from artists directly. But this is only part of the equation. Would you buy from those artists if they only sold their music in DRM'd WMA? I'd hazard a guess and say 'no' based on a later comment. That's why I asked you specifically under what terms you'd pay for the music. If "must be sold by artist directly" is one of those terms, that's great. I'm all for it. But is that the only term? Your original post made mention of "the formats we want", which this doesn't address at all.
In #35831974 you do lay out some additional terms that would certainly go against the DRM idea, as noted above. That specific post seems to take me back a decade or so - I'm pretty sure every CD can now be neatly ripped to MP3 and distributed across all of those platforms without any additional cashflow to the RIAA as a result.
But, again - "no DRM" - a term already mentioned above.
There's two more posts where you attack ACs mostly for being AC that don't contain any additional information.
Posts earlier than thos
hasent even been music worth stealing in years. my ipod is laoded with apps and video and not 1 song heh. relly if anyone is pirating the garbage they make today i relly wanna knoe why heh.
when mp3 players were still an expensive niche, i just listened to radio. i didn't always like what i heard but mostly the songs were good. then i got myself a 512mb sandisk player. the first songs i put into it were ripped off the few (5-6) cds i had. then i found out that i could download mp3s from the net! then we got an unlimited internet plan (it has become limited now).
so, what i realize is that i'm unwilling to pay anything for music. if you make me listen a few ads, i'll not mind. but i will not directly pay for my music. that is the value of music for me. free music IS a lifestyle for me.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Buy a musical instrument and learn how to play it.
The difference is that when all music is available to you then you might not listen to what the record labels want you to hear. That is why they are so scared of the internet - it makes them obsolete. An indie band couldn't afford to get thousands of CDs pressed and distributed to record shops around the world, but you can throw out some MP3s in torrents or on YouTube for free. Instead of having to pay to get on the radio or send out freebie marketing material you can let the social aspects of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc. do it for you.
Even recording equipment is dirt cheap now. Not quite studio spec perhaps but more than adequate for a first couple of albums. Even music videos are cheap to make now; Example (that's his stage name) made the video for "Just Me and Mandy" for just £1000.
The days of needing a massive loan from the labels are over. Record shops are closing all over the place and new companies like Amazon and Apple control the online distribution market. The labels are fucked and they know it, so rather than try to adapt and salvage what they can they are trying to turn back time with restrictive licensing.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC