Top Spotify Lawyer: Attracting Pirates is in Our DNA (torrentfreak.com)

Spotify is not only one of the world's most popular music services, it's also one that's proven particularly popular with both current and former pirates. From a report on TorrentFreak: Today Spotify is indeed huge. The service has an estimated 100 million users, many of them taking advantage of its ad-supported free tier. This is the gateway for many subscribers, including millions of former and even current pirates who augment their sharing with the desirable service. Now, in a new interview with The Journal on Sports and Entertainment Law, General Counsel of Spotify Horacio Gutierrez reveals just how deeply this philosophy runs in the company. It's absolutely fundamental to its being, he explains. "One of the things that inspired the creation of Spotify and is part of the DNA of the company from the day it launched (and remember the service was launched for the first time around 8 years ago) was addressing one of the biggest questions that everyone in the music industry had at the time -- how would one tackle and combat online piracy in music?" Gutierrez says. "Spotify was determined from the very beginning to provide a fully licensed, legal alternative for online music consumption that people would prefer over piracy." [...] Of course, hardcore pirates aren't always easily encouraged to part with their cash, so Spotify needed an equivalent to the no-cost approach of many torrent sites. That is still being achieved today via its ad-supported entry level, Gutierrez says.

Comments

The way they talk about pirates

[future assassin]

you'd think the pirates would have killed the music labels and music artists back in the tape days, yet here we are 2017 and music is going strong...

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

you'd think the pirates would have killed the music labels and music artists back in the tape days, yet here we are 2017 and music is going strong...

So they survived despite the piracy? Let's ramp up the Piracy!

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[mwvdlee]

The cycle is simple.

1. Labels start gouging customers.
2. Customers turn pirates.
3. Third party offers a service that doesn't gouge customers (the stage where Spotify currently is).
4. Pirates turn customers.
5. Labels notice that most people are paying for music.
6. Rince and repeat.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Dutch Gun]

Streaming video services could be doing the same thing if Hollywood pulled its collective head out of their MPAAss.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[AlphaBro]

Agreed. Let's kill this pop culture abomination once and for all.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Kjella]

1. Labels start gouging customers.
2. Customers turn pirates.
3. Third party offers a service that doesn't gouge customers (the stage where Spotify currently is).
4. Pirates turn customers.
5. Labels notice that most people are paying for music.
6. Rince and repeat.

Pretty much. Those taking the worst beating on Spotify though are the fringe artists, because they offer one price per stream even though the niche might be willing to pay more and if you're not on Spotify you'll miss most the market so it's meet the new boss, same as the old boss. For the life of me I can't understand why artists didn't organize some form of non-profit client where you could plug in subscriptions like repositories on Linux. Some could be free. Some could be paid. You could co-operate on hosting or roll your own. You could cooperate on billing or roll your own. Artists would be free to organize how they want and offer any music package they like. Now it's the Spotify deal, take it or leave it.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[mwvdlee]

If they get paid per stream, then those fringe indies are making a lot more money off me than they used to.
I tend to go out exploring similar artists or searching for new music using Spotify and often end up at brilliant artists with just a few dozen followers.
A flat rate makes it so the artists can compete on the product, not the marketing.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[geekmux]

The cycle is simple.

1. Labels start gouging customers...

OK, let me just stop you right there. For years now, my preferred method to listen to music and perhaps in some small way support the artist was to buy their music CD. 30 years ago I was paying anywhere from $10 - 15 to obtain the music I wanted. And today, decades later they still charge anywhere from $10 - 15 to obtain the same damn thing, in both physical and electronic (iTunes, et al) format, with the only exception being hipsters who don't even know what a fucking record player is paying 3x for vinyl. Hell, the fact that CD prices have not even increased in 30+ years equates to the cost actually dropping, which is hardly defined as "gouging".

Care to tell me how you validate this cycle even starting? Yes, I admit that we're paying rather obscene prices these days to attend a concert to see our favorite artist perform live (shit, I practically miss the days when we thought Ticketmaster fees were the "rip off"), but that has little to do with the theft of the music.

On top of all this, I tend to laugh at the concept of music piracy these days when artists pretty much put their entire works up on YouTube, which you can "rip" the audio streams using dozens of legal plug-ins today. Not to mention other ad-riddled avenues that are free. Why again is music piracy even a valid legal concern?

All of this bullshit is why I will always favor and respect the artists who give away their music and look for nothing more than a donation, which I will gladly provide. (You can usually find this on Bandcamp.)

TL; DR - Explain how labels are gouging customers when media prices have remained the same for decades, and YouTube exists.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[jitterman]

I was curious as to exactly what "a lot more money" might add up to. It doesn't appear to be much,unless just under five grand USD in five months for a million-plus plays is considered a lot in the country in which you live. If you're a big act with, say, 20 tracks that get this kind of attention, that's great, but unfortunately small bands just aren't going to make a real living off this arrangement. Touring and performing is still where it's at for the relative unknowns.

You're correct in that at least the possible exposure to a wider audience is now there, though, and that is certainly a good thing.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[jitterman]

Yours will likely not be a popular post, but it is entirely valid. CD in 1985 - $15. Equivalent cost in cash in the US today (used an inflation calculator at saving.org) - $36.35. I may (and do) hate DRM, rootkits, mistreatment of artists, and all of the other things we point out about media companies, but the price of albums on CD isn't something we can honestly complain about.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Kjella]

I tend to go out exploring similar artists or searching for new music using Spotify and often end up at brilliant artists with just a few dozen followers. A flat rate makes it so the artists can compete on the product, not the marketing.

Not really, there's an awful lot of power in deciding what songs are in the playlists they promote and what they put in your discover feed. For every one of you there's probably a hundred using it as a quasi-radio streaming mainstream artists over and over again. I did it this Christmas, just tuned into some pre-made playlist and that was what was playing. Which means all the classics got another stream or five, regardless if I like every particular one. I'm not going to be annoyed enough to get up and switch. I'm not going to really miss any particular song. I just got something "good enough" with minimum effort and Spotify is in control of who benefits from all the potential Christmas songs that fit the bill. The A-list artists rarely complain because they get so many "free" streams from people who didn't pick their song in particular, they're just included everywhere. They drown out the exceptions to the point that your odd streaming paid them $0.005 while Justin Bieber got a billion * $0.005.

Spotify does not have as a goal to diversify the music industry. If keeping the big artists big keeps the big labels happy and the business flowing that's what they'll do. They know it's the big name artists that have the power and financial backing to walk out on them. They know everyone else is a bit damned if you do and damned if you don't, they need Spotify more than Spotify needs them. In fact, I think for quite a few of my music loving friends if you're not on Spotify you pretty much don't exist. That's not exactly a good position to bargain from.

Re: The way they talk about pirates

[pixelpusher220]

The reason streaming rates are so bad is because of the labels. Also because of the labels you have to pay the label owned organizations like ASCAP even if it's an indie band who isn't under label contract

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Dutch Gun]

TL; DR - Explain how labels are gouging customers when media prices have remained the same for decades, and YouTube exists.

I'd say the labels gouge their clients far more than the customers.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[geekmux]

You say that they're not gouging because they off the same digital product today for the same price that they did 30 years ago.

How would you feel about paying $30 - $60 a month for a 2400 baud connection to a mainframe that happens to have internet access?

Technology has evolved to make a better product. And we pay $30 - $60 per month for relatively the same product today as a result.

Other than Autotune abuse, technology has done nothing to make a better singer, and this discussion was about the industry protecting against piracy in the face of legal distribution channels providing the same content for free, which tends to invalidate the entire you're-stealing-my-shit argument.

Your analogy does not really apply at all here.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[geekmux]

TL; DR - Explain how labels are gouging customers when media prices have remained the same for decades, and YouTube exists.

I'd say the labels gouge their clients far more than the customers.

And as a result, their narcissistic clients flaunt their millions on social media, so we can see just how much they suffer?

Oh yeah, I can really fucking tell that artists today are barely making ends meet because of all that gouging...

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[geekmux]

Yours will likely not be a popular post, but it is entirely valid. CD in 1985 - $15. Equivalent cost in cash in the US today (used an inflation calculator at saving.org) - $36.35. I may (and do) hate DRM, rootkits, mistreatment of artists, and all of the other things we point out about media companies, but the price of albums on CD isn't something we can honestly complain about.

Nor should an obscenely wealthy industry complain about piracy somehow "ruining" them or their clients.

Come to think of it, I see the entire action of ramping up a pointless legal army to "combat" music piracy justified as a business expense and therefore a tax write-off. Nothing more.

Astroturf much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did SlashDot become the dumping ground for corporate fanboi advertising cloaked as a story? This just sounds like a Spotify promo, not journalism.

Oh, silly me I forgot the last decade for a moment...

Fuck beta.

Re:One huge reason piracy will always beat spotify

[Calydor]

While true, I can't help but suspect Spotify (and the like) are the Steam of the music world - simple and easy to the point that they compete with the convenience of piracy.

A small number of tone combinations are pleasant

[wolfheart111]

There is a finite number of tone combinations that our ears consider pleasant. Is it not like bitcoins where as the miner does not actually create the bitcoins... but finds them. You know where im going with this.... :)... The tone combinations are already there, there is no creation of it, therefore there is no piracy... only the liberation of whats naturally human. I may not have explained my point as best as it could be. lol

Re:A small number of tone combinations are pleasan

[Kiuas]

There is a finite number of tone combinations that our ears consider pleasant.

'There's only a finite number of letter combinations that our eyes find pleasant'

The tone combinations are already there, there is no creation of it, therefore there is no piracy.. only the liberation of whats naturally human

'All the words have been written already at least once so there's no original works of literature anymore'

I may not have explained my point as best as it could be

Your point is not valid because it's not true.

2017?

[antdude]

We're still in 2016! Wait, are you from the future? If so, then what is 2017 like? :P

Re: 2017?

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like 2016 was, just with far most celebrity deaths, more lawsuits, even more people moving to streaming to get away from buying content in physical form with even more laws put in place to alienate consumers. Just like 2016 was, really.
Thanks for asking. 2018 wasn't much better.

Re: 2017?

[antdude]

So the future is suckier. :(

Re:2017?

[allo]

It's great until now. We will see, who's going to die.

Re:2017?

[antdude]

Great? How so?

Re:One huge reason piracy will always beat spotify

[AlphaBro]

Maybe if Steam streamed games and could revoke access at any point, but it's a bit different. More akin to iTunes and similar services, I think.

Slashvertisement?

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

But why isn't it marked as such?

Linux

[Skapare]

Well, they do have a download for Linux. But it is unsupported. It needs to either be supported or open source so we can self-support (like we do for so much other stuff). So, clearly, I am not in their intended market. So, clearly, they don't expect money from me. So, how can they make a valid legal case that me not paying them means they are losing any money (that I have deprived them of anything). FYI, I do pay for my music that has a cost attached, like at Magnatune.

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

There are open source linux clients for Spotify. You just have to be on a premium subscription to use them.

Spotify- better than I ever thought it would be

[markdavis]

I have to admit that Spotify is exactly what we had needed for years prior. Huge music collection, reasonable pricing, free alternative with non-over-the-top advertising, great audio quality, clients for all kinds of devices (phones, tablets, web, amplifiers) and works great with Firefox under Linux with no software required.

I have even noticed when I searched for a few albums that were missing over the last year.... they were eventually added. So they even seem responsive to what people are trying to find.

I will never stop relying on the old model of purchase/rip/local music. I like "owning" my collection and being completely non-dependent on the 'net. I have some older and obscure music that will NEVER show up on streaming. But that doesn't mean Spotify isn't a great augment to what I do/use; especially for music that I wouldn't otherwise buy. And more importantly, it is a great thing that I now recommend to all the non-technicals out there (and they WAY outnumber us). Regular people that just want a way to enjoy music without trying to understand or deal with ripping, proprietary music services like Apple's, or resorting to physical media. I am probably responsible for referring over 100 new Spotify customers a year through word-of mouth, demos, and friend-of-a-friend discovery. Two new customers just yesterday, as the sister of one of my friends complained to me that Apple revoked her ability to access the few dozens songs she bought from them (a story I have heard NUMEROUS times).

Pandora still has Spotify beat for just "radio station" type listening, even though their collection is much smaller. Even so, I have discovered lots of new music through Spotify with their recommendations. And that is something Spotify could improve- they need to allow users to directly rate songs (like Pandora does) so it can learn what we like and offer more recommendations. And the other is a better "radio station" type mode, like Pandora has.

Re:Spotify- better than I ever thought it would be

[Vastad]

Even so, I have discovered lots of new music through Spotify with their recommendations. And that is something Spotify could improve- they need to allow users to directly rate songs (like Pandora does) so it can learn what we like and offer more recommendations. And the other is a better "radio station" type mode, like Pandora has.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Spotify developer, this is just from reading around forums, pissed off at some features not working on Spotify as expected. Here is what I've learnt and it may be inaccurate. Take with salt:

Spotify sort of do the rating mechanic when you click the thumbs up/thumbs down on a song as it is playing (at least on my Android app). "Thumbs up" will add it to a Liked playlist connected to your account.
Now this Liked playlist influences your Discover Weekly playlist. But here is where Spotify becomes retarded. Discover Weekly is not only influenced by your Liked playlist. It's influenced by every song you add to any personal playlist you create but no weight is given to what you actually play(!?). I know right?

My Discover Weekly experience was OK at first, but now it is filled with crap simply because I happen to have a set of "Decades" playlists (the 80s, the 90s, the 00s) just to capture the handful of songs from those eras I liked. So random Top 40 stuff I would never listen to gets shoved down my throat. What really surprises me is that I have playlists dedicated to Dub and Roots Reggae, a well pruned collection of Grunge, Ambient music and Deep House. But none of those ever seem to influence my Discover Weekly experience. Which leads me to believe the so-called "algorithm" for Discover Weekly is there to sell the Top 40 music and doesn't give a toss about your obscure tastes.

What's particularly frustrating is you as the user have no control over this "algorithm" and can't force it to "reset". I ignore it now.

That said, a couple of months ago a new feature was forced upon us (in the UK at least) called Your Daily Mix.
These are supposedly doing the same thing as Discover Weekly but split into 4-6 "genres" and mixing music from your playlists in those genres with new discoveries. Here's to hoping it works as desired.

Whipping the Llama's Ass

[0100010001010011]

Not quite sure why streaming now a fancy a 'new' technology. Shoutcast is still going strong with 67,814 stations (as of right now). Created in 1998. It has almost every type of station you could want to listen to. Works on any device that can play a stream and you can even rip it to disk if you want.

Re:Whipping the Llama's Ass

[Nemyst]

Streaming is superior to internet radio (Shoutcast or otherwise) because you get to pick what you want to listen. If I want one track on repeat, I can just play that. I can create my own playlist without having to own the music and start up a Shoutcast server for it.

Instead of having to pick from the 67,814 stations, you get to select the exact song out of tens of millions that you'd like to listen to right now, and slowly curate your own library to listen to whenever you wish. It's a far more flexible model.

Re:Whipping the Llama's Ass

[0100010001010011]

Maybe it's just me but the people that 'pick' what songs they want to hear spend more time picking songs than listening.

I want a radio station to do that job for me. I don't want to be a DJ while I program. It also allows me to listen to other music that I may not have heard without listening to my own echo chamber of music.

It's free, most stations don't have ads and it works on all devices. My 'stereo' in college was a cheap 386 laptop I found for $10. This is when the iPhone and Android were relatively new and expensive; it worked just fine until I re-donated it.

Re:Whipping the Llama's Ass

[Nemyst]

You can do that with streaming too. Have you even used any modern service? You just import your current library (so it knows what you like), then it'll suggest you stuff based on your preferences. You'll get albums, artist repertoires, and "radios" (which tend to just be random tracks from similar artists you may like). And guess what? If you don't like a song, you can skip it. If you like a song, you mark it and it'll help further curate what it's suggesting.

It just feels like you cling onto Shoutcast much like others cling onto IRC. Sure, it works, but it's dated and there are reasons to prefer something more recent. To be unable to understand what makes a new tech appealing versus an old one is the same as being unable to understand why older techs were important or appealing back in the day.

How to stop being taken seriously: a simple guide

[rebelwarlock]

Just say "DNA" when referring to your company, as though it was a living thing. People will see that, assume you're being a pretentious, ignorant twat, and immediately disregard everything else you have to say.

Re:I call BS

[Kiuas]

Spotify themselves ARE the pirates!

How? They're doing their best to navigate the landscape of music business. They have to pay the record companies if they want to stay in business, and getting the price per play higher means increasing the price of their service which at this point will drive away customers to other similarly priced services further leading to reduced revenue and thus even less money for the artists,

What they should do is allow people to voluntarily pay more to support the artists. I've been a paying member of spotify for years. I'd gladly pay double the price if it was guaranteed that the added money goes straight to the artists.

I've also bought albums I'd have no idea even existed if I didn't get exposed to them via Spotify, again something that your 'exposure is irrelevant' argument completely ignores. Putting your stuff on Spotify as an indie makes it instantly accessible to about a hundred million people. If none of those people deem your music worth supporting by buying albums/merch or coming to your show, then it's very likely the music is not good to begin with.

Re:Hardcore pirates are easy to part from money

[EndlessNameless]

You act like all of the Radiohead buyers and app buyers are hardcore pirates, and treat those donations as being 100% attributable to pirates.

Yet, you offer nothing to prove that this is case. You simply make that assumption and run with it.

Your argument is terrible, and the only reason it sounds vaguely appealing is due to an unstated and highly debatable premise.

Who has to pirate anything anymore?

[JudgeFurious]

Every person I know who spent any time at all ripping, downloading, trading or sharing is sitting on a small mountain of music. Terabytes of high quality MP3 files that contain months of music, most of which I've barely had time to grow tired of. We each serve as one another's off-site backup and we all buy the relative handful of new music because at this point we don't have to go back and re-buy libraries of music we'd purchased time after time as formats changed. We didn't get more conscientious or more law abiding. We got full. Seriously, when I see that some older act is releasing new versions of their catalog that have been magically remastered or whatever I don't look to see if I can afford to buy them. I say "Fuck off, I'm stuffed!" like the fat guy in Monty Python's History of the World (which I also have in BluRay ripped MKV files thank you).

Re:Who has to pirate anything anymore?

[desdinova 216]

I think you meant Meaning of Life.

Sure

[dschiptsov]

Pirates were there long enough for genes to emerge, for evolution to select the trait and to spread this gene over the population of American lawyers. Idiots, idiots and stupid memes everywhere.

no-cost?

[Some_Llama]

"Of course, hardcore pirates aren't always easily encouraged to part with their cash, so Spotify needed an equivalent to the no-cost approach of many torrent sites. "
this statement confuses me, if pirates are making money then why would an equivalent be a no-cost?

the answer of course is because pirates don't make money, sharing content isn't about making money but having the content how they want it and usually for free.

Re:A small number of tone combinations are pleasan

[wolfheart111]

Which language are you referring to? All of them? For instance Chinese has over 50,000 characters, thats only one language. :) Im referring to a relatively small number of tones combonations that all cultures use. Try listening to different cultures music on youtube.... I often think to myself.... damn that sounds familiar.

Re:A small number of tone combinations are pleasan

[Kiuas]

Im referring to a relatively small number of tones combonations that all cultures use

The small amount of them makes not a single difference to your argument being wrong. Even if there were only 2 possible tones in existence, it would be possible to create endless original/unique combinations with these tones.

That is, the amount of new/original songs is not limited because the amount of tones is limited.

Re:A small number of tone combinations are pleasan

[diamondmagic]

The same way a Go game has a "finite number of combinations?"

"More than the number of atoms in the observable universe" sure is an interesting way to define "small"