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Spotify to restrict some music to paying subscribers only

Taylor Swift pulled her music from Spotify because she believes music should not be free.










Summary: 50m users who currently listen for free will not be able to access the latest releases from some top flight artists
Until now, all music on the service has been available to both free and paid users but Spotify has now agreed with multiple major record labels to restrict some of the biggest new releases to members of its premium tier only, according to the Financial Times.

 Key facts/ statistics:

  • 50m paying subscribers and another 50m free users
  • y restricting some music from free users Spotify stands to gain a reduction in royalty fees paid to the labels per stream, and a chance at exclusive releases from artists like Kanye West, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, all of whom have restricted new albums to the paid tier of competing services such as Apple Music and Tidal
  • Taylor Swift took the decision to pull her songs from Spotify, she wrote that “music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free.”

My opinion:
I think if spotify does this a new platform would have to come around providing free music again, adueinces have their way around things and simply forcing them to pay espeically the large fee spotify charges just isn't worth it for audiences. I think audiences would just start discovering new artisits that want free music instead of paying like many record lables want. the sheer amount of streams and popularity would have their own financial benefits eg. encouraging band merch or going to particular conserts or events - there needs to be a correlational study on this.

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