Universal Reportedly Wants Spotify To Scale Back Its Free Streaming

An anonymous reader writes with news that Universal CEO Lucian Grainge is not a big fan of free streaming music. "Spotify might have bent over backwards to lift restrictions on its free streaming service a couple of years ago, but at least one music label appears eager to turn back the clock. Financial Times sources understand that Universal is using licensing negotiations to squeeze Spotify and demand more limits for those who don't pay up, such as restricting the amount of time they can play tunes in a given month. The publisher isn't confirming anything, but CEO Lucian Grainge has lately been chastising the free, ad-based streaming model — it's no secret that he would like more paying customers. According to one insider, Universal believes that Spotify is directly hurting sales at stores like iTunes."

Comments

I'm Torn.

[sg_oneill]

Whilst I support what Spotify do on principle (I havent pirated a single song since spotify came out, although I had already started buying my most loved stuff on iTunes) it does represent a pretty bad deal for artists. I've had a fair few thousand listens on spotify, not bad for a small band, but haven't seen more than a few measly cents off this.If this translated to, say, a hundred sales on iTunes, well it'd be somethng. There has to be a middle ground where artists can get paid (I'd love to write you guys music for a living), but lets music be free.

I ended up putting my stuff on torrents, beause screw it, if I'm not going to be paid, I might as well at least get some exposure out of it. But it'd be nice to sell a few albums.