Spotify wants to bring free ad-supported music streaming to its iPhone app

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Music streaming and subscription service Spotify is said to be preparing to renegotiate its licensing agreements with the recording industry in an effort to possibly extend its free pricing option to mobile devices.

Spotify


Spotify is already in negotiations with Warner Music, with Sony and Universal talks set to begin in the next few weeks, according to The Verge. How the company fares in discussions with those "Big Three" record labels will likely impact negotiations with smaller players.

Spotify is said to be seeking reductions in the fee it pays to the labels. Licensing expenditures take up about 70 percent of the company's revenues, with another 20 percent covering customer acquisition. The remaining 10 percent pays for Spotify's other costs, meaning the company essentially just breaks even.

While Spotify is said to be second only to Apple's iTunes in terms of the amount it pays out to music publishers, the service has been the target of many complaints from artists. A number of musicians have held back their works from Spotify, claiming that the company doesn't dispense nearly enough royalties to artists.

In addition to lower licensing fees, Spotify is also said to be working to bring its ad-supported free listening model to mobile devices. Currently, the free model is only available on traditional computing platforms, with users able to listen on their mobile devices only if they purchase a paid subscription.

Spotify faces an increasingly crowded music streaming market even as it attempts to achieve profitability. In addition to competition such as Rdio and Moog, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are all getting into or thought to be getting into the music streaming segment. Perhaps most worryingly for the company, Apple has for some time been said to be in talks for its own streaming service, and recent revelations seem to indicate that such a service may be appearing in the very near future.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    sockrolidsockrolid Posts: 2,789member
    Re: "Perhaps most worryingly for the company, Apple has for some time been said to be in talks for its own streaming service, and recent revelations seem to indicate that such a service may be appearing in the very near future."

    That axe is going to fall sooner or later.
    Right on Spotify's neck.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    Not unlike FM radio, I guess, w/o the radio but the incessant ads. Ugh! No thanks! :)
  • Reply 3 of 12



    #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
    iTunes radio is coming. Tick-tock, Spotify, Pandora, etc...


     

  • Reply 4 of 12
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member


    It's either free, or it's add supported.  It can't really be both.  

  • Reply 5 of 12

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AppleZilla View Post



    #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
    iTunes radio is coming. Tick-tock, Spotify, Pandora, etc...


     



     


    Spotify is not a radio last time I checked. You can select pretty much any song you like.


    Most likely free Spotify would kill Pandora. 

  • Reply 6 of 12
    jason98 wrote: »
    Spotify is not a radio last time I checked. You can select pretty much any song you like.
    Most likely free Spotify would kill Pandora. 

    Spotify already has a radio feature, that is available for free on their apps as well, and pandora is still around and doing just fine.

    However, I do agree that if spotify can have it's radio service and on-demand service both available for free on my phone, I would dump pandora in a heartbeat
  • Reply 7 of 12
    jumejume Posts: 209member


    Apple should buy spootify no matter what... iTunes radio coming or not, Apple can't make things better everywhere. Look what happened with Maps... Spootify is a top notch service and Apple should go for it, it would make iTunes a killer. They have tons of cash, I don't see why not go for it , because they are fucking awesome.

  • Reply 8 of 12

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Jume View Post


    Apple should buy spootify no matter what... iTunes radio coming or not, Apple can't make things better everywhere. Look what happened with Maps... Spootify is a top notch service and Apple should go for it, it would make iTunes a killer. They have tons of cash, I don't see why not go for it , because they are fucking awesome.





    I like Pandora, but I feel that the range of what I hear on stations is better on Spotify.


     


    Even though I paid the annual $36 for Pandora, I usually use the free Spotify.


     


    The advantage of Pandora is that it is web-based (no app), so I can run it at work.


     


    The Spotify iPhone app interface could use some work. But it's okay.

  • Reply 9 of 12

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Jume View Post


    Apple should buy spootify no matter what... iTunes radio coming or not, Apple can't make things better everywhere. Look what happened with Maps... Spootify is a top notch service and Apple should go for it, it would make iTunes a killer. They have tons of cash, I don't see why not go for it , because they are fucking awesome.



    I beg to differ. First, any playlist that you synch to your mobile takes up space on your device even if you have made it unavailable to play offline. Shouldn't playing offline means that it is synched and is taking up space (it does not need an internet connection) but making a playlist unavailable should free up the space? Why would I designate it unavailable offline if it still is taking up space? Makes no sense. I have tons of music that I do not want synched to my phone and make available all the time, but it is still taking up space. I now have over a GB of storage on my phone totally useless because playlists that I no longer care about Makes absolutely no sense. Also, I have been trying for over a week to cancel Spotify Premium and cannot; its a trap. I had to launch an investigation with my bank.


     


    If you Google "cancelling Spotify" and "Spotify taking up device storage space in offline mode", you'll be amazed by the level of abuse their customers are enduring. Apple absolutely should not and will not have anything to do with them other than having an app in the Apple App Store. Trust me, Spotify won't be around a few years from now. 


     


    It reminds me of how Blockbuster used to have drop-off boxes for DVDs. I would drop off a DVD, no one would scan it in until much later, and then I'd be charged a late fee that I could not dispute. I dropped my membership--and you see what happened to Blockbuster.


    /rant

  • Reply 10 of 12
    feynmanfeynman Posts: 1,087member
    Apple should just buy out Songza. No audio ads and you choose the music you want to hear based on your mood.
  • Reply 11 of 12
    jumejume Posts: 209member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Carthusia View Post


    I beg to differ. First, any playlist that you synch to your mobile takes up space on your device even if you have made it unavailable to play offline. Shouldn't playing offline means that it is synched and is taking up space (it does not need an internet connection) but making a playlist unavailable should free up the space? Why would I designate it unavailable offline if it still is taking up space? Makes no sense. I have tons of music that I do not want synched to my phone and make available all the time, but it is still taking up space. I now have over a GB of storage on my phone totally useless because playlists that I no longer care about Makes absolutely no sense. Also, I have been trying for over a week to cancel Spotify Premium and cannot; its a trap. I had to launch an investigation with my bank.


     


    If you Google "cancelling Spotify" and "Spotify taking up device storage space in offline mode", you'll be amazed by the level of abuse their customers are enduring. Apple absolutely should not and will not have anything to do with them other than having an app in the Apple App Store. Trust me, Spotify won't be around a few years from now. 


     


    It reminds me of how Blockbuster used to have drop-off boxes for DVDs. I would drop off a DVD, no one would scan it in until much later, and then I'd be charged a late fee that I could not dispute. I dropped my membership--and you see what happened to Blockbuster.


    /rant



     


    Don't you think that thing is something that can easily be fixed? Never thought about that my self to be true. I like Spootify because I get used to playing sam songs, albums from my iTunes library over and over. And my library is over 90gigs, which means lots of music. Anyway either way it goes I want something that can build playlists for you for the mood you're in. Music discovery, that's whats I want.

  • Reply 12 of 12
    Spotify already has a free add supported radio, what is this article talking about?
Sign In or Register to comment.