Spotify set to end free music streaming under pressure from Universal, Warner and Sony

[samcool55]

I don't use spotify, but cmon, spotify was proof that free and legal can go together, oh well...

[Mew]

If this lets them expand their music library, I'm all for it. I use Apple music in favor of Spotify just for the much bigger music library, even despite the awful app and app interfaces. 

[Guest Johnny5g]

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AxelRantila]

You all should just go to premium:

• They don't have everything, but they have a LOT of music, and it makes it far easier and cheaper to expand your taste than buying records does.
• They offer offline playback of music, so there's no argument for people who listen offline, and they don't limit your offline storage amounts or usage.
• You get a range of sound quality from normal MPx to high-end audio (beware of data usage).
• You don't have to store physical media or have dedicated storage (unless you want it all offline).
• If you can't afford $10 more a month, how can you afford monthly fluctuations in your spending (likely much more than $10). For that matter, how can you afford to buy music at all?

There will still be free music that you can obtain legally. If you don't take any of those avenues, you're stealing, plain and simple. For those of you who say that only physical things could be stolen, explain to me the phrase "They stole my idea!". Not according to your logic.

 

Don't be a bad person.

Well said (I'm using Google Play Music instead but the same thing can be said about any music service), and even me as a student could afford a monthly subscription. It is one less lunch outside/month. You can survive that.

[wpirobotbuilder]

today you can`t live without electricity,household water,etc but you can without music.ppl will just NOT pay for another monthly bill even if they afford it.especially with youtube.among other things

 

and no,if you pirate music you are NOT stealing. digital piracy is not theft. check it with your US court. stealing an actual music cd from the store and downloading an album from the internetz are two extremely different things

Spoken like a true pirate. It's not illegal in the eyes of any court (I completely agree with you that it shouldn't be outright illegal), but US courts do enforce copyright infringement, which you ARE doing when you download something without ever paying for any version of it.

 

Pirating is fine if you've already paid the creator for SOME form of the work (e.g. you bought an Iron Man DVD and you want a digital copy for convenience). I have no problem with that, and the record industry shouldn't have a problem with it either. But downloading something without ever paying the creator IS wrong -- if everyone did it, how could they afford to create more things? Creation isn't free, and they need an income to live.

[othertomperson]

if you cannot spare $9.99 USD a month to do shit legal, then seriously, cut down the candy.

 

Piracy is first and foremost based upon affordable availability.... most of you can afford $9.99 pr month. You just dont want to. Cheapskates.

 

Spotify is legal, wtf are you talking about? Piracy is a distribution issue. One which is not remedied by removing whatever ad-supported services that exist.

 

 

Just because it's easy doesn't make it right.

 

If everyone pirated it or ran ad-block, you wouldn't have any music to listen to, because a majority of musicians wouldn't be able to survive. Sure there will be those who do it exclusively because they enjoy it, but they deserve compensation.

 

Paying a monthly subscription, especially once you're an adult or even a teenager with a job, is painless and easy (Assuming you don't live in places that make it exceptionally difficult to pay for online things, like in India).

 

Actually artists get sweet FA from sales of music, regardless of the distribution media. Almost all of their income comes from tours.

 

I must say, though, that this is the first generation that's expected to pay a monthly subscription for fucking radio.

[CyanideInsanity]

Heaven forbid people PAYING for things they LIKE. 

 

Since when is an ad supported free access service a taboo business practice? I don't really have an issue with this going purely sub based if its because they aren't making a profit, but if they are being pressured into this because the record labels want even more money, thats bullshit.

[RagnarokDel]

"Consumers set to revive winamp" and throw a big middle finger again to the music industry

[RagnarokDel]

I believe something like 90% of their revenue comes from paying customers. They make almost nothing off the free users.

Free customers are future paying customers.

[TheConverter]

Spoken like a true pirate. It's not illegal in the eyes of any court (I completely agree with you that it shouldn't be outright illegal), but US courts do enforce copyright infringement, which you ARE doing when you download something without ever paying for any version of it.

 

Pirating is fine if you've already paid the creator for SOME form of the work (e.g. you bought an Iron Man DVD and you want a digital copy for convenience). I have no problem with that, and the record industry shouldn't have a problem with it either. But downloading something without ever paying the creator IS wrong -- if everyone did it, how could they afford to create more things? Creation isn't free, and they need an income to live.

 

1) Artists don't care about selling music anymore. They make 250.000$-500.000$ per gig

 

2) Listening music anywhere on the internet (like a music video on YouTube) is bascially stealing since the audio is temporarily downloaded to your PC.

[Albatross]

Spotify, don't do this. We had a good thing going.

[MattLantis]

Is playing 4 ads in a row not enough for them? 

at ridiculous fucking volumes

[soaringchicken]

Yeah I think this is kind of crap, but I just got premium, so I don't care as much at this point. But spotify is a great service and I'd hate to see it go paid. 

[DigitalHermit]

if you cannot spare $9.99 USD a month to do shit legal, then seriously, cut down the candy.

 

Piracy is first and foremost based upon affordable availability.... most of you can afford $9.99 pr month. You just dont want to. Cheapskates.

 

Yeah... but if 9.99USD is half your weekly budget, how do you maintain your sanity?

 

#3rdWorldProblems

[BallisticPeanut]

My music collection is like half legit purchased albums and half youtube rips.  Wouldn't mind paying $10 a month for music to avoid going through my messy library, but I don't have data on my phone plan which would make it pretty inconvenient.

[That Norwegian Guy]

Heaven forbid people PAYING for things they LIKE. 

 

Most people I know, including me, use Spotify to discover new music that if enjoyable, I and they will pay for. Radio is dead.

 

Honestly though, I welcome this move, as more people will discover music through Soundcloud instead - and 95% of musicians on Soundcloud do not have a label - allowing people to find and support musicians directly without the need-to-be-extinct-ASAP middle man that is the vile and cancerous publishers.

[TheConverter]

Most people I know, including me, use Spotify to discover new music that if enjoyable, I and they will pay for. Radio is dead.

 

Honestly though, I welcome this move, as more people will discover music through Soundcloud instead - and 95% of musicians on Soundcloud do not have a label - allowing people to find and support musicians directly without the need-to-be-extinct-ASAP middle man that is the vile and cancerous publishers.

 

There is always something frest to listen on Soundcloud

 

https://soundcloud.com/adamofiscella/adamo-fiscella-believe-in-me

 

https://soundcloud.com/housemusic

https://soundcloud.com/trancemusic

https://soundcloud.com/edm

[TopWargamer]

@itsmefurqan

 

Shouldn't the title technically be "Rumor: Spotify may end free music streaming under pressure from Universal, Warner and Sony" because Spotify hasn't confirmed this rumor yet.

[Atmos]

Grooveshark is gone, streamsquid is a mess, and now spotify is going too? Pray the rumor is false.

 

removing other ad funded and sanctioned means of listening to music only means greater cause to pirate it in the first place.

A large number of pirates steal not because they like to, or don't want to pay, but because of restrictions on where, when, or how they can get the media. Removing all but paid monthly subscriptions to simply stream music will only increase piracy, are these companies so obsessed with profit that they are blind?

[TroubleKlef]

Looks to be great. Maybe now Spotify can make some money. I remember crunching the numbers in another thread and something like even if 95% of free users resorted to pirating and the other 5% converted to the paid tier, Spotify would still make more money than it did before lose less money than they are now.

 

The lot of you want Spotify to continue on a bad business model and then become shocked when they close down. Competition is great folks.

[likwidsolutions]

Good thing PS4 added support for Mp3 playback. I loved spotify for PS4. I even had a Premium subscription but I realized it just lets you download songs (in a format that you can't even seem to find, at least I couldn't, but I wasn't rooted either). Honestly the only reason I don't use my own collection is I had 2 HDDs with every document, photo, music, video backed up and a 4TB with the same, and they crashed exactly the same time give a feew hours. I couldn't think straight....some of those files were form over 10-15 years ago. But this isn't going to make me buy CDs, just not use Spotify, sucks for them. Hopefully the media player is better than Spotify on PS4, I haven't tried it yet.

[snoopy6489]

Heaven forbid people PAYING for things they LIKE. 

Well some people don't use it enough to justify paying for it. like me i only use it when im at school because its the only way to get music. so i only use it for about half a year.

[dalekphalm]

Spotify is legal, wtf are you talking about? Piracy is a distribution issue. One which is not remedied by removing whatever ad-supported services that exist.

 

 

 

Actually artists get sweet FA from sales of music, regardless of the distribution media. Almost all of their income comes from tours.

 

I must say, though, that this is the first generation that's expected to pay a monthly subscription for fucking radio.

Almost all of their income comes from Concert Sales and Tours, yes... if they are already a hit success. A no-name or indie band with very little following makes jack shit from tours. Some go on tour at a loss, simply to get the word out. Yes, there is that middle ground where they're still pretty small, but they make a decent living on tours, but most musicians don't make much money, and don't live well.

 

Furthermore, the Radio is ad-supported. Unless you listen to ad-free Satellite Radio, such as XM... Which is subscription based.

 

They aren't paying a monthly sub for Radio. They're paying for so much more. First, no ads - therefore incomparable to traditional radio. Second, you get access to hundreds of "radio" streams. Third, you can choose the song you listen to, and skip tracks, unlike radio.

 

1) Artists don't care about selling music anymore. They make 250.000$-500.000$ per gig

 

2) Listening music anywhere on the internet (like a music video on YouTube) is bascially stealing since the audio is temporarily downloaded to your PC.

1. only happens if they are already a success. That link is about Justin Bieber and Martin Garrix, who, while I don't know him, has 1.7m YouTube subs, and 2.5m Twitter Followers, so he's apparently a bit of a success too.

 

How much does Random Indie band #7 make on tour? Or even a smaller "known" indie band like "Hey Rosetta!"? A lot less I'd imagine.

 

Yeah... but if 9.99USD is half your weekly budget, how do you maintain your sanity?

 

#3rdWorldProblems

That's a regional pricing issue. Any and all digital services should regionalize pricing in nations that have low GDP and low income economies. The same way that Steam does. That's not a problem with subscription models in general, it's a problem with Spotify not giving you a reasonable sub fee based on your local economy.

[evilarceus]

*prepares for free music doomsday*

[dalekphalm]

@TheConverter I'm not a huge fan of EDM. Sure, it's nice occasionally, but my main genre is Progressive Rock.