Spotify - anyone heard of it?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/22/spotify-is-no-longer-invite-only-in-the-us-and-users-get-their-first-six-months-of-service-free/

I’m sitting here at Facebook’s F8 conference with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and he’s just told me that Spotify will no longer be invite-only in the US, and that the service will have no limitations (essentially be free) for an unpaid user’s first six months using the service — the clock will start ticking, and be retroactive, after a user signs up.

This six months leeway will be available both internationally and in the US.

iPhone app has been giving me grief since recent upgrade.

As long as I can still pay my $5.00 without any ads, I'm happy. I don't care that I didn't get a free period. Right now I'm listening to an album that I would happily pay $5 for (it's Rachel Brooke, Lonesome West - A Bitter Harvest and it's fantastic gothic Americana.) I have that experience nearly every day.

Oops - that would be Lonesome Wyatt.

As posted over in the Facebook thread, you can now only sign up for Spotify if you have a Facebook account. Gross.

wow

I mean, this doesn't affect me because a) I already have an account and b) I do have a FB account, but, honestly considering cancelling my premium subscription on pure principle.

I don't want to encourage promising companies to tie themselves to Facebook so desperately.

if on a future update they say that you cant proceed without a FB account then im out

It's hard to imagine a worse way to torpedo all the goodwill and momentum they had. Unconscionable if true.

It is true, a real actual Spotify employee replied in that thread:

Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set up.

what a disaster for spotify

what a joke

i have bs fb account set up jsut for this type of thing nbd

I don't know, I kind of think it is a bd if you have to go through the trouble of setting up a fake account at one service just to get access to a completely different service.

Yeah this is a complete nightmare.

Spotify guys must have finally seen "the social network" huh

one of the faster sell-outs of the last years imho

i have a skeleton fb account for these kinda things - simply says my name & dob, but otherwise no information whatsoever

I HAVE FRIENDS IN REAL LIFE

now FB will also know what music you listen to hooray

So not looking forward to the constant comments on my Timeline from my relatives, "lol I've never heard of this band", "you listen to weird stuff lol".

i have a skeleton fb account for these kinda things - simply says my name & dob, but otherwise no information whatsoever

Looks like that's what I'll be setting up. I loathe Facebook.

Fake FB accounts are essential, I use it more than my real account.

Does Facebook pay them to do this or something?

More like they probably pay Facebook for the "privilege".

uh i don't think so--it's not in spotify's interest to limit how ppl log in unless they're getting comp from fb. maybe that comp is in the form of promotion value only but still.

isn't fb supposed to be rolling out a bunch of media integration? assume this is one of those.

Don't think Facebook needs to pay them for exposing them to 750 million active users tbh. xxp

isn't fb supposed to be rolling out a bunch of media integration? assume this is one of those.

Yep, supposedly rdio, MOG, and one other streaming service that I can't remember off the top of my head have all signed on with Facebook. Wonder if they will have similar restrictions.

Crap observational comic from 20 years hence: Hey guys, remember when we used to call Facebook the [air-quotes] "Internet"....?

The whole Facebook thing is unfortunate. If you have your Spotify account connected to your Facebook, it now posts updates of every song you listen to on your news feed. It seems like there's no way to only turn this feature off.

I also tried to "share" a Spotify track on Facebook, but people have to have Spotify connected to their Facebook in order to play the track and I assume that a lot of people are disconnecting it because of the news feed thing. (I did.)

I don't 'get' Spotify. Hard drive space is essentially free these days, and you can download almost anything Spotify has

and the Spotify stream isn't CD-quality, right? you may as well just listen to the tracks on YouTube

so why use it, given the added annoyance of having it tell everyone on Facebook what you're listening to? i tried Spotify out a couple of times and haven't really found a use for it

^

The cloud is just another name for download and delete. Why not just skip the second half?

xp Well the songs are properly licensed, if that's something you care about (obv not everyone does). The interface is also pretty slick. I can use it on my work computer. I can share playlists/tracks with my friends. None of these are dealmakers on their own but together they add up to an attractive package imo.

If you pay for Spotify Premium then the stream is supposed to be CD quality (or close to).

i hate file management so i have no desire to download music

and that's what spotify is for

Considering Spotify's royalty rates, I'd say arguing that the songs are properly licensed is just being cruel. I prefer to support artists in a slightly more effective manner. And how much file management is required for itunes?

I'll admit that I'm in Australia where we have download limits, and so wasteful downloading strikes me as doubly unappealing. Still.

it's okay for sampling albums before i buy.

once emusic goes to a streaming service (in addition to the subscription service), i'll likely stop using spotify.

I think the royalty rates MAKE SENSE. A half of a penny or so to play an mp3 one time? How much more should be paid?

A month or so ago, we had an exchange on here about what it would take to make $25,000 off of an album on Spotify. If the royalties are only a quarter of a cent, that's 100,000 listeners hearing a ten-track album a total of ten times each.

I know that Spotify royalty rates are small but they're certainly greater than zero. I still buy a fair amount of music as CDs and downloads but pre-Spotify there was no way I could legally and affordably listen to the wide range of music I now take for granted.

Also, it's going to be up to artists to negotiate good deals for themselves with streaming services. Record companies don't have to manufacture and distribute product and can take less.

You can definitely have your Spotify account connected to Facebook without it updating your status/feed, it just means navigating the FB app settings, which are far from intuitive and I imagine most are unlikely to do.

OK, that's good to know.

Royalties are not 1/4 of a cent:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

Yeah Spotify doesn't post anything to my Facebook as far as I can see, even though it is connected to my FB account.

so for 100K plays, the artist receives ... $29.00 (0.00029 per stream). the label receives ... $160.00 (0.0016 per stream). no artists or labels are getting rich from spotify, regardless of how shrewd or tough they are in negotiating deals with the service.

OTOH this guy claims €0.004 per stream: http://www.spotidj.com/blog/?p=264

Though I thought that Spotify royalty rates weren't fixed, and that artists on major labels got more than those on indies?

it's a gold mine. all you need to do is get your song streamed 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times.

there are a LOT of ways artists/labels collect royalties besides sales (radio, TV, performance at live venues). there's no reason streaming should be any different or should produce a huge income to justify its existence as a legal source of revenue.

i use spotify all the time

you, personally, are providing a living wage to indie artists across america.