As people stream music beyond their computers. I imagine that many, like me, use Spotify if they happen to be using their computers but that this is not an ideal arrangement if one is sitting in a different room, for example. As streaming to different rooms becomes more common then not actually owning the music may also become more common. For the moment, I still want music either in CD form or on my iPod so I can take it to the living room, bedroom, bicyle or car.

What will happen, I guess, is that those acts who can go out and perform will make a good living and many others will either have to negotiate a very good deal with Spotify (or whatever else comes along) or go back to the day job. I can't see that this is necessarily a bad thing.

can't afford to rely on music as a main source of income today, Spotify aside.

Day jobs have been the way forward since the lawyers and accountants took over in the 70s.

My CD buying has increased. It's useful to checking out whenever an album is good enough for me to buy.

But then again I prefer a physical product over a digital product any-day.

I know it's a bit glib to say it but nobody really knows what will happen. I think we need to wait a while, at the moment there are so many holes in Spotify that I can't see it slowing down my CD buying and downloading just yet, indeed in the short term, because my habits haven't changed, I may well buy more because I can try it on Spotify first. It is a bit of a pain to record stuff from Spotify and tag it for use on my ipod but it's not that hard but that will surely change as time goes by.
I think that the amount of advertising will increase on Spotify (in fact it already seems to be more frequent than it was) and as a result we'll be making a decision between paying £10 a month to subscribe to an unlimited Spotify or maybe £12.50 for 90 emusic downloads which we can keep and easily drag onto our ipods or onto a memory card for the car.
The market is simply not mature enough for anyone to know. I know that timeframes are severely reduced these days but it must have been a good 15 years between compact cassettes being available to the home taping killing music campaign started. What happens when Spotify realises that it hasn't made any money and won't make any money and it closes down through lack of funds?

Internet access is becoming cheaper and cheaper. Once you've got always-on internet through your iphone or equivalent then you'll be able to get spotify style things on the go as well.

but when you 'all' go on about listening to Spotify/iTunes/etc are you 'all' using laptops/other new-fangled devices? Because I'm slightly bemused by the idea that some folks are surely listening via their PCs and so almost certainly have the attendant hum of a couple of internal fans going in the background - which must be a bit like listening to my hi-fi and running the vacuum cleaner at the same time? Am I wrong and looking foolishly yokel? Or maybe you're listening at work which would make it acceptable (and me jealous)?

Back to the subject. I can only really add that by the time I was in my home-taping prime (the 80s) tape and tape playing equipment was of a decent enough quality to mean that me and my mates didn't just use them for sampling purposes, we kept them. It never really deprived the industry of sales though as we were at school and couldn't afford everything we taped - and some revenue was provided, I went to see Whitesnake in 1984 without owning any of their records. As hinted at above I'm not really interested in Spotify, I don't have time anyway, but I still like to own CDs or vinyl.

If I ran Spotify, fairly soon - once the buzz about the service has started to plateau and the HJHs, Zep, Floyd and Co. are all on board - I'd announce out of the blue that because of an increasing "server overload" problem, the free subscription mode was "unfortunately" coming to an end. But to "compensate" existing free subscribers they could have a year's premium subscription for a handsome discount.

It's the classic drug-dealer model (hi, String!): give it away, then when as many fiends as possible are hopelessly hooked, turn off the tap unless they pay.

I find spotify an interesting toy, more to demonstrate it finding "name a song, any song*" to friends and colleagues less stricken by the music bug than I. And yes, i have just about begun to use it to play more than the 30 second snippet on amazon, i-tunes or e music, pre possible purchase. (But I find the 30 secs, amazingly, often enough to know whether I must have or not?!) And I have used it for background mood music whilst I was unable to access i-tunes. It hasn't bit me the way it seems to others, but, then again, I do not have the work arrangements that allow constant background music, as some of the work at home or retired posters here do. A diversion, but until all the £50 guys are dead, we will still want an alternative. God knows where we will buy it from, tho', the way it's all going.
*Ok, not that one, try again, one a little bit more well known....

1. How likely is this development to affect their business model ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Despotify ?

2. Some of us would rather not use it at work as it makes outbound p2p links, but would be happy to use on a laptop when away from work as long as we know that it won't do any p2p when the client is switched off/logged out of. Is this in fact the case ?

Like several earlier posters, I've bought more music in the last couple of months after hearing it on Spotify.

But the record company ads for their big acts of the moment are a very bad idea. Even if I had vague enthusiasm for (say) Glasvegas or MGMT, I don't after their music has been played directly next to an album I have chosen. I end up being actually less likely to buy an album, not more.

I think the money side of it needs working out, but good streaming is probably the way forward for musicians and listeners alike.

No fans

The internet, for all that's good and wonderful about it, has helped spread the idea that all music should be enjoyed free of charge, either streamed from sites like Spotify or last.fm, or simply downloaded from piratebay or such like.

But I, and I'm sure a lot of other members of the Word Massive, are a big fan of groups that would be lucky to sell 20,000 copies of their albums, have no radio or TV exposure and, in many cases, do not or cannot tour. How can they earn a living if people simply rip off their releases?

As sanctimonious as it sounds, I disagree with illegal downloads out of principle. If somebody has created music, or a film, or whatever, that you own, they should be paid. End of story. Very few of us would want to work for nothing, and I don't understand why so many illegal downloaders think musicians should be different.

Yes, there are problems with the music biz, and it has been very slowly to react to the internet. But all music cannot be free. If no musicians earn a living, sooner or later there will be no musicians. And that would be a sorry state indeed.

Just my opinion. It's been a long day at work and I'm going for a lie down...

I never used tapes to test out whether I wanted to buy an album. I taped an album and then listened to that - it never occured to me to then waste money by going out to buy the Cd.

and as an antipodean who cant access spotify

can i ask a few questions?

1 is Spotify subject to streaming interruptions
2 are the files "broadcast in MP3 format
3 are those who are saying the sound is excellent comparing it to an MP3 format stored on itunes rather than uncompressed sound
4 is spotify equivalent in sound quality to listening to FM radio

regards

the artist formerly known as Tbone

Is a relatively new business model. It really only developed after the Second World War and it wasn't until the sixties that record players and their successors became part of most homes. Before that, popular music performers and composers relied on live performance and sheet music sales to make a living. From the sixties on we saw that some musicians could be come extremely wealthy and their record companies and publishers even more so.

Now things have changed and musicians and all involved in music production and promotion need to rethink their business strategy. Clearly music brings a great deal of pleasure to millions of people and it is right that those producing it are rewarded but collecting that reward has suddenly become much harder. This particularly will apply to those artists who rely entirely on recorded work and cannot reproduce what they do as a live performance. Frankly I don't know how they are going to continue to make money unless they can negotiate extremely good deals with Spotify or whatever else comes along.

If we look at other forms of music perhaps there are lessons to be learned. Classical, folk and jazz musicians, by and large, don't earn much from record sales. Most of their income probably comes from live performance and they have the skill to be able to do this. Much of rock/dance/chart music (whatever you want to call it) cannot be produced outside of a studio and if you can't sell records for the price you once could, I don't know how long that can continue for.

It's an interesting subject and if I knew the answers I wouldn't be sitting here typing, I'd be away on my yacht somewhere hot. I'd like to see a knowledgeable Word journalist (aren't they all?) give it some thought.

subscription-based streaming service, although they've denied it. It seems to me that there's more business sense in a combined "streaming / purchase if you like it" service, especially if there's a discount on offer for streamers who subsequently purchase.

I'm a bit of a sound quality fan (aka hi fi snob to some people) and I listen to Spotify to try out new music which, if I like, I'll buy on cd. I have to say, though, that for reasons of space and convenience I'd be happy to replace my LP's, CD's, singles, tapes and MiniDiscs (!) with a high speed and reliable link to a remote server that fed a high quality signal to my hi fi. I'm not bothered about whether I'd own or rent the sound source as long as a) it was available on demand; b) it was reliable; c) I can copy it to my portable player; and d) most importantly, it feeds a high quality signal into my hi fi.

From an ecological pov, it seems to make sense to stop using resources to manufacture CD's that a) don't sell and get trashed; b) only ever get played a few times in thousands or even millions or households; and c) become a rather large collection that will probably be a massive inconvenience for my executors as and when I shuttle off this mortal coil.

what happens when some unscrupulous boffin comes up with a way of converting Spotify tunes into MP3s? Surely it is only a matter of time (if it hasn’t happened already)?

Spotify's model will succeed if mobile technology becomes totally flawless. We all know the numbers of people listening to iPods on trains and buses and walking and jogging. If the sound quality continued to vary like mobile phone receptions do in these situations then people would soon get p-ed off and buy CDs/download songs again instead.

The try-before-you-buy model is certainly very attractive. I have used MySpace for this purpose frequently.

It always annoys me when record companies claim illegal downloads are killing music. Music has always been around and inside us, and it always will be!

How many musicians lost their jobs when recorded music was invented, and the local house band could be replaced by a record player? Music didn't die then and it won't die now.

The new thread re Last FM and its subscription fee kind of ties into this one I think. I admit to being wholly ignorant of what it is that Last FM use the subs for - is it purely to offset running costs or are royalties paid to the artist etc?

On that point, I suspect not, or not as much as we might imagine. Robert Fripp for instance at one point insisted that all of his own and all King Crimson material be removed. Quoting from his diary back on 31st May 2007:

"DGM recently took action to have KC/RF tracks removed from Last FM. Their business model did not include us in their advertising revenue, nor in profits from the high-yield sale of a company predicated on the work of others. Last FM were not able to persuade me, in extensive correspondence, that equitable payment of music-generators was a priority in the company’s raison d’etre, nor that it was in our interest to allow them to continue using it. Music is free & for the people! It is also virtually free for some business-persons."
http://www.dgmlive.com/diaries.htm?entry=7080

I just wonder if, when we pay our subs to such sites, how much, if any, is going where most of us would like it to go - ie the artists. This is becoming an endless loop. Wordistas, set Eamon Forde on the case...

* 80% of recording acts don't make enough money to pay their mortgages. Never have done and never will. That's largely because they're trying to sell original material and the supply of that always outstrips the demand. If you want to have a steady living out of music go and play in a pit orchestra or do sessions. But then you've got to be really good.
* I'm sure Spotify have a business model but so did Friends Reunited and thousands of other web businesses. None of these internet plays have ever turned out the way they were originally supposed to do. They'll take the first big cheque they're offered. Given the state of the economy that could be a while.
* Never in the history of mankind have you had so many people calling themselves professional musicians. It can't go on for ever. Same probably applies to the people calling themselves professional journalists and broadcasters and footballers and anything else that's regarded as a cool way to make a living. I am reminded of the late John Harvey-Jones when he talked to an independent TV producer. "This is not a job. It's a lifestyle."
* In the overwhelming majority of cases the money that artists make from back catalogue is buttons. Somebody explained to me how all those "three for £10" sales that the megastores used to have were made up of the catalogue of bands who had left the label and would never ever, barring a once in a lifetime freak accident, *ever* earn back the amount the company had advanced them.
* It's a business but it's one that primarily exists thanks to the fact that every single musician believes he has a right to be in it, no matter how small the rewards.

Aren't on Spotify.

What use is it?

been on spotify a coupla months - free with the ads

bought three cds on the basis of hearing them on spotify - two bands i'd never heard of before - shearwater and calexico (using the sounds like facility gets you loads of new music to listen to) and the war stoires UNKLE cd, which i'd read dreadful reviews of, but which happened to sound just great on spotify...

i listen to spotify when i'm working at the computer - i listen to cds on my ipod everywhere else - if spotify alloed you to download, then cd sales would be in big trouble, but it doesn't, so i don;t see the problem - i, like many other, still like 'owning' stuff, although i can see this fading ...

Not sure if entertainment/media businesses prepared themselves for extent to which experiencing online versions of product would develop. What was thought to be supplementary is more and more the main event. And it's all too cheap to be sustainable. Too late to close the box now though. That's one view.

Then again I'm personally finding an embarassment of musical riches via the online route, like Spotify and here and on Youtube, that's quite overwhelming. I've been exposed to stuff, old and new, that would have remained ignorant of otherwise.

Downside is you lose the relationship with music you once had. There's something aggravating about having to deal with everything through a computer. I think I will still go for CDs, so for now Spotify will probably make me buy more, by making me confident about more purchases, but this will only be until such times as service like Spotify can be easily played in same way as stereo/hi fi/TV/radio. Then what happens? We will want all we had before but a lot less will be paid for it all - not just music. Nevertheless, where there's a demand not being met someone will come up with an idea for profting from that, or for how to fund it so it happens.

In part, I do agree with the implication of David Hepworth's post above that nobody owes musicians a living. Theyre not a special interest group to be subsidised by any of us. Make music we like, we'll support it. But I do think things are shifting away from his point that 80% of recording acts don't make enough money to pay their mortgages.

Yes, that always has been true, but my concern - and perhaps I shouldn't have demonised Spotify in the title of the thread in trying to make the point - is that suddenly, it could be a time when you could see a big chunk of that remaining 20% not making ends meet either. Not because fewer people want to listen to them, but because more and more of those listens can come at cd or near cd quality without any payment involved.

If Barry McIlheney is happy streaming from Spotify rather than buying cds, if the Word office is a Spotify streaming zone, then is that the direction we're all ultimately heading? And if we do ultimately have all our music as zeroes and ones, are the wider public, going to care how and where we get them as long as we get them cheap/free?

Could we be at a point where say Elbow are more widely heard than ever in 5 years time, yet receive a fraction of the income they get now simply because people are streaming it from servers for nowt instead of buying a cd or download? And if so, do they pack it in? If the 80% in David's argument were to become 90%, I think we'd notice a difference on the musical landscape.

The big irony is all this is happening at the time when you really dont need a record company and can avoid all the horrors outlined in the Negativland link above. At the point when you can go direct to the listener, the very technology that lets you do it is the same technology that might stop you getting paid for it.

I think that Tadorna's is a great point - we all want what we've got, plus more, while paying less, and I agree that covers all areas, not just music. But I still cant get that equation to make any sense in my head - who is going to produce good quality work if they're not going to get paid for it?

I purchased the Decemberists CD off Amazon becuase they are pretty much my favourite band and I want to support them. My first CD since the Dylan bootleg latest volume came out. I've ripped it. Now what? It just hangs the house taking up space I don't have.

If I could get spotify on the move I wouldn't even need to download stuff. I'd happily pay for that service as well I'd say.

Since I've discovered Spotify I have bought CDs by David Holmes, Tunng, The Pernice Brothers, Teddy Thompson, Martha Wainwright, the Penguin Club Orchestra, and other smaller, indie musicians who probably appreciate Spotify for what it is - a way to get their music heard by millions of people, a massive marketing tool.

I then listened to U2's latest, decided it was shite and saved myself lining Bono and co's pockets even more.

This could be the genius of it. By making record labels (and that twat from Terra Firma) almost arbitrary the power will be far more with the musicians again. Recorded music didn't quite manage to kill gigging, did it now?

Let's face it. There will always be a need for music. There will always be a need for people to play music. How this happens might change, but the music will never die, no matter how spotified we all become.

I've bought more since joining Spotify, it's another way of discovering music.

My brain hurts with the piracy argument.

The Record companies deserve everything they get and they are the ones who deserve extinction most. They've hammered artists and buyers for decades and what the internet has done has stopped people buying the same cd again for the extra tracks.

The scare tactics also do your head in, you are a thief, a burglar, a drug dealer if you download music for free.

However, if a musician produces a song that you like, he should be paid. In utopia, the musician would get all the money, no middle man needed.

I do download stuff and if I like it I buy it, if I don't I don't. The difference is now that I don't end up with albums with 8 filler tracks.

My 18 year old son would never buy a cd, he downloads from I Tunes and gets free stuff from other place.

His generation know nothing about record companies nor care too. Rightly or Wrongly they'll get their music as they see fit.

They don't collect albums largely, just tracks for their ipod.

Watching him with interest, I would suggest dvd is going to same way now and is at the point of no return.

There are some great bootlegs of bands I like around the net and the artist or record company never earned any money for bootlegs ever.

The difference is that I can listen to this stuff largely for free now when it used to cost 15 quid a disc.

Artists maybe should embrace this more, many have, make downloads of their concerts / soundboards available at reasonable prices.

Many have and even comedians sell the previous night's performance at their gigs.

Musicians directly in touch with the fans is great. The Record Companies have cut back to virtually no support for new artists now.

Who on here isn't happy to see them in trouble?

I'd not wish anyone out of a job honest!

So far I reckon it's about a draw with listening first on Spotify leading me to download, or not, the album. Having just struggled to the end of the new Decemberists album on Spotify (that's one that I won't be downloading despite having all their others) I was regailed with two adverts, one for the latest Take That album and one for the latest Snow Patrol album. I wonder if they're actually targetting their ads. If so it may explain why I didn't like the new Decemberists!

I bought the last two Decemberists CDs. But not the new one. I listened to it on Spotify then downloaded the track I like for 79p. No doubt I'll be able to get it for a fiver by the end of the summer.

However I have my doubts about the amount of bandwidth Spotify eats up, so it may cost extra depending on your broadband supplier.

at the end of last year, I've bought over 30 cds. I think rumours of the demise of the CD are greatly exaggerated. And if Spotify is the answer, where's the back catalogue of Madness, Ian Dury and Kevin Coyne - to name but three. And The Wedding Present!!

Considering all the attempts on its life, from home taping, illegal downloading, posting on youtube, and now Spotify, the old walrus seems to be hanging on pretty well.

I would suggest that hyperbolic claims about threats to the life of music aren't helpful: A few of us get concerned, look into the issue, discover every time that the problem is a much smaller one and lose interest: Nothing is threatening music itself, or even our access to it. What is under threat is the ability of the current delivery model to generate income from it.

I'm not saying this isn't a problem, but it's not as big a threat as people are making out. I'm a natural cynic, but I do have faith in the fundamental music supply chain, which never changes despite changes in the way music is delivered and charged for:

1) A musician wants to make music, and would quite like to share it with an appreciative audience.
2) People hear bits of music and want to hear more.
3) Someone finds a way of getting the music from the musician to the audience which will generate profit.

(1) and (2) will never change. (3) will change, but only in the way it's done.

The old survivor should have the last word:

for music have a pretty dismal record for paying out royalties. If people are going to get more music online - I'm thinking more in terms of streaming than iTunes - royalty payments aren't going to be a lot to live on. Look at the quotes from Robert Fripp as extracted above.

Personally, I'm still very much attached to the physical manifestation of music. Even the stuff that I download I then burn onto CD. I don't feel like I really 'have' it if it's just on the hard drive. And I resent paying for a download as it doesn't feel like I'm actually getting anything tangible.
But Spotify is making me wonder.
I can foresee a time, not far off, when I would be prepared to pay a subscription in order to listen to whatever I want, whenever I want it, via whatever device I'm currently using. I'd never actually need to keep anything - not even an audio file. And I'm already used to the subscription model for TV. This model would be easy for the user and would provide revenue for service providers and artists.

... and none of it goes to MCPS then they are nothing but scumbags ... if no money then at least some better/more prominent links to bands websites etc. as a bit of PR ( payment in kind )

I shall personally be boycotting until this matter is clarified.
At least Youtube doesn't profit and the majority of it's content isn't available for purchase.

is on Radio 4's "You and Yours" later today chatting about the problem Spotify has with it's free business model.