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

Or, from another perspective ...

[gstoddart]

According to one insider, Universal believes that Spotify is directly hurting sales at stores like iTunes.

Or, you know, maybe the insiders are morons who believe in their unrealistic assumptions about just how much they're going to sell.

Because, you know, according to the copyright idiots, more value than the GDP of the US or any other country is lost to piracy.

Maybe the pay-for-play digital music market is exceedingly finite, and your wishful thinking of getting billions of dollars for doing nothing is complete crap?

Message to all braindead CEOs out there

[Anonymous Coward]

The middle class income keeps stagnating and prices keep going up. The first thing to go is entertainment.

Re:Message to all braindead CEOs out there

[Dutch Gun]

The middle class income keeps stagnating and prices keep going up. The first thing to go is entertainment.

Believe it or not, as someone in the entertainment industry (videogames) who has worked through a couple of recessions, my job has been far more recession-resistant than I would have anticipated. No, the first thing to go is expensive luxuries, or other big-ticket items. Even during a recession, most people are still working, and even if they don't have enough for more expensive purchases, they still apparently have enough to buy a videogame or two, go out to see a movie or to dinner, or pay for some music.

I'd blame the major media industry's resistance to new business models more than anything. Oh, and the fact that they target their customers with lawsuits and push shitty laws through Congress. It's no wonder they've engendered such hatred among their customers (not that EA and Activision haven't done the same, of course). I've never understood how companies that make entertainment products can manage to continuously piss off their customers with such regularity.

The New Reality

[Irate Engineer]

The old model for music distribution:

1. A song gets played on the radio.

2. A listener hears the song and would like to listen to it on demand, so they head down to the album store and buy a CD or record.

3. Listener pays for product, leaves happy! Music!

4. Distribution label PROFITS!!! (though cut has to go to artist, agent, CD/record production, etc.. ).

The new model for music distribution:

1. Listener hears artist's music on Youtube, can play on demand for free, can contribute to artist directly!

2. ??? - sound of crickets chirping -

Not seeing the need for big labels anymore myself. They are trying to coerce money out of a system that is rapidly realizing this new reality. Good luck with that!