The Music Industry's Latest Shortsighted Plan: Killing Freemium Services

An anonymous reader notes that there have been rumblings in the music industry of trying to shut down freemium services like Spotify's free tier and YouTube's swath of free music. The record labels have realized that music downloads are gradually giving way to streaming, and they're angling for as a big a slice of that revenue as they can manage. The article argues that they're making the same mistake they always make: that converting freemium site listeners (in the past, music pirates) to subscription services will be a 1:1 transfer, and no listeners will be lost in the process. Of course, that's no more true now than it was a decade ago. But in doing trying to do so, the labels will do harm to the artists they represent, and shoot themselves in the foot for acquiring future customers by getting rid of several major sources of music discovery.

Comments

Re:Labels do harm to the Artists ?

[phantomfive]

The reason is, because in many cases, the skill of the markets is greater than the skill of the musicians. That's why labels make more money, and can abuse the artists. Because if the artist leaves (in many cases), there will always be another one-hit-wonder to replace them.