By Jack Howorth
Arts Editor
Launched late in 2008 by a Swedish startup, Spotify was created as a way for users to have access to hundreds of artists’ music for a small membership fee. Starting with roughly 10 million users, Spotify has nearly quadrupled in size and in turn has become a force to be reckoned with in the era of digital media sharing.
With the vast majority of songs on iTunes costing approximately $1.29, building a playlist of songs can cost a listener upwards of $20. Given Spotify premium’s relatively cheap premium membership cost of $10 a month, and an even cheaper price at $5 for college students, Spotify has become a way for music fans to economically listen to their favorite artists.
It has potential to be mutually beneficial for both the artist and the listener, allowing for more music to be shared with a much wider audience.
However, there are many artists who do not view Spotify as a positive phenomenon; rather, they see it as detrimental to the music industry by not giving the artists the proper credit and payment that they deserve. Compared to a paid download off of iTunes, for example, Spotify provides the artist of any given song one-thirtieth the pay he would get from iTunes.
Instead of receiving compensation per download, artists receive shares of membership fees relative to their share in tracks played and their respective royalty rates.
In response to this, music icon Taylor Swift recently pulled all of her music off of Spotify in an effort to get it to give more compensation to the artists. I speculate that Swift believes that by pulling her music, which currently carries over 2 million followers, she would put a large enough dent in the company in the hopes of it changing its methods.
Following Swift’s efforts, country artist Jason Aldean pulled his album, “Old Boots, New Dirt,” from Spotify. While Swift and Aldean’s endeavors did not seem to make any waves in Spotify’s policies yet, the heavily publicized strike did cause ripples in the music community.
Personally, I believe that although Spotify could do more to contribute to smaller artists, it helps serve music’s purpose: to entertain people. While I recognize that for stars like Swift a share of membership fees might not equate to the earnings selling individual albums and tracks would come out to, in the end, for the average artist, the ease of music sharing and simple publicity gained from accessibility makes the startup more beneficial to the industry as a whole than it does damage to it.
Spotify provides a way for listeners to hear their favorite music practically for free, and, thus, is a force of good in an otherwise too financially concerned business.
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