Spotify CEO comments on Taylor Swift albums removal
Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek has responded to Taylor Swift’s decision to remove her albums from the streaming service with a blog post tackling what he describes as the “myths” of streaming music. “We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it. So all the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time,” wrote Ek.
In his post, Ek announced that Spotify now has 50 million active users, with 12.5 million of them paying for a monthly subscription. That’s up from 40 million and 10 million respectively in May 2014. He added that Spotify has now paid out more than $2bn in royalties to labels and publishers.
“A billion dollars from the time we started Spotify in 2008 to last year and another billion dollars since then. And that’s two billion dollars’ worth of listening that would have happened with zero or little compensation to artists and songwriters through piracy or practically equivalent services if there was no Spotify,” wrote Ek.
“When I hear stories about artists and songwriters who say they’ve seen little or no money from streaming and are naturally angry and frustrated, I’m really frustrated too. The music industry is changing – and we’re proud of our part in that change – but lots of problems that have plagued the industry since its inception continue to exist.”
Ek trained his sights on a lack of transparency within the music industry, referring to the $2bn payouts figure.
“If that money is not flowing to the creative community in a timely and transparent way, that’s a big problem. We will do anything we can to work with the industry to increase transparency, improve speed of payments, and give artists the opportunity to promote themselves and connect with fans,” he wrote.
Ek also defended Spotify’s “blend” of free and subscription music, with Swift having removed her albums because the company refused to only make them available to its paying subscribers.
“Our free service drives our paid service,” he wrote. “Here’s the key fact: more than 80% of our subscribers started as free users. If you take away only one thing, it should be this: No free, no paid, no two billion dollars.”
Ek also claimed that a top artist like Taylor Swift can expect to earn $6m a year from Spotify streams; criticised YouTube and SoundCloud for their lack of payments to artists for every stream on their services; and cited the likes of Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Calvin Harris and Daft Punk as examples of artists who have sold lots of albums without windowing their releases from Spotify.
“Here’s the thing I really want artists to understand: Our interests are totally aligned with yours. Even if you don’t believe that’s our goal, look at our business. Our whole business is to maximize the value of your music. We don’t use music to drive sales of hardware or software. We use music to get people to pay for music,” he wrote.
“We’re getting fans to pay for music again. We’re connecting artists to fans they would never have otherwise found, and we’re paying them for every single listen. We’re not just streaming, we’re mainstreaming now, and that’s good for music makers and music lovers around the world.”
Ek’s blog post means we have now heard from all the main parties involved in the Taylor Swift removal, as well as from some interested observers.
Source: The Guardian
