Music-streaming giant Spotify is toying with the idea of allowing musicians to reserve new releases for paying subscribers, although it balked at doing so for Coldplay’s latest album, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Music-streaming giant Spotify is toying with the idea of allowing musicians to reserve new releases for paying subscribers, although it balked at doing so for Coldplay’s latest album, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Such a move might push some users of Spotify’s free version to upgrade to a $10-a-month subscription. Artists and record labels have pressured Spotify to pay more for the music it streams.
A ”paid-only” window might also increase album sales if it led more music fans to purchase music rather than wait months or years for it to become available via cumbersome free options involving ads or the use of computers instead of phones or tablets. It’s also possible it could tempt more people to seek out pirated music.
The person familiar with the discussions wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. Spotify’s deliberations were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
Spotify has argued its ”freemium” model has been a highly effective tool for gaining new paying subscribers. The company is the global leader in music streaming, with 20 million paying customers and 75 million total active users.
But artists like Taylor Swift have said the free service devalues their work. Last year, after failing to win an exception to have her music only on Spotify’s paid tier, she pulled all her music from the service, instead distributing it to paid-only streaming services such as Apple Music. Similarly, Adele withheld her latest album ”25” from all streaming services, which may have helped it achieve 4.5 million album sales in its first two weeks in release.
Spotify spokesman Jonathan Prince said in a statement that ”we explored a wide range of promotional options for the new Coldplay album and ultimately decided, together with management, that Coldplay and its fans would best be served with the full album on both free and premium this Friday.”
