Spotify

[Phogasm]

I was actually surprised people still buy Cds (albums) and that was my initial question. Then I turned into a smartass for no reason.....and apparently not a very funny one. I just don't see the point in buying a CD anymore when you can just buy individual songs.

[lotus]

Don't worry, trying to be funny and failing utterly is where we shine.

I still find that I end up liking a few other things, sometimes even more than the song I was looking for, so I see value in having the whole collection. I haven't bought an actual CD in ages, though. At least 8 or 10 years I would guess.

[RayRay]

I was actually surprised people still buy Cds (albums) and that was my initial question. Then I turned into a smartass for no reason.....and apparently not a very funny one. I just don't see the point in buying a CD anymore when you can just buy individual songs.

But I'm not buying CD's, I'm buying digital albums. I do buy a lot of individual songs but still also full albums that I really like.

[lotus]

I was actually surprised people still buy Cds (albums) and that was my initial question. Then I turned into a smartass for no reason.....and apparently not a very funny one. I just don't see the point in buying a CD anymore when you can just buy individual songs.

But I'm not buying CD's, I'm buying digital albums. I do buy a lot of individual songs but still also full albums that I really like.

You should talk about it on this week's podcast.

[RayRay]

I was actually surprised people still buy Cds (albums) and that was my initial question. Then I turned into a smartass for no reason.....and apparently not a very funny one. I just don't see the point in buying a CD anymore when you can just buy individual songs.

But I'm not buying CD's, I'm buying digital albums. I do buy a lot of individual songs but still also full albums that I really like.

You should talk about it on this week's podcast.

Can I text my thoughts?

[lotus]

Make sure you flag them as NSFW first, especially if they contain Golden Girls references.

[Jammer]

I have never noticed this before and wonder if it is new but now in Spotify if you look up a artists, there is a tab for "artist radio" that lets you play a station like Pandora.

[Falling Man]

I don't use Spotify but I thought this was interesting.

On Tuesday, Century Media and its associated labels — InsideOutMusic, Superballmusic and People Like You — announced that they had decided to pull their repertoire from streaming music service Spotify in an attempt "to protect the interests of their artists." Now, Spotify has issued a statement to Digital Music News responding to that removal, as well as broader claims that its service undercuts rights holders.

"We are sorry that Century Media have opted not to offer its music to their fans through Spotify," Spotify said. "Spotify has one of the biggest music libraries in the world — of over 15 million tracks - and is committed to offering our users the widest possible selection of music across artists and genres from around the world.

"Spotify was launched out of a desire to develop a better, more convenient and legal alternative to music piracy. Spotify now monetizes an audience the large majority of whom were downloading illegally (and therefore not making any money for the industry) before Spotify was available.

"Spotify is now generating serious revenues for rights holders; since our launch just three years ago, we have paid over $100 million to labels and publishers, who, in turn, pass this on to the artists, composers and authors they represent. Indeed, a top Swedish music executive was recently quoted as saying that Spotify is currently the biggest single revenue source for the music industry in Scandinavia.

"Spotify is now also the second single largest source of digital music revenue for labels in Europe (IFPI, April 2011). Billboard reported in April that Spotify territories saw an average digital growth rate of 43% last year. By contrast, neighbouring countries (without Spotify) saw only 9.3% digital growth.

"We are very proud of the positive contribution that Spotify makes towards growth in the music industry."

The U.S. version of Spotify, which gives its users access to all the songs in its cloud to organize into playlists and listen to as they please, has reportedly attracted 1.4 million registered users so far in spite of its current invite-only status. Of those users, roughly 175,000 are said to be "paying users." In Europe, where Spotify has been available in seven countries since its launch in 2008, the company currently has around 1.6 million paying users, according to published reports.

According to the an infographic on the Information Is Beautiful web site, which visualizes the different monetization methods available to artists and how profitable they are, if you are a solo musician, at $0.00029 per play on Spotify, you will have to receive 4,053,110 plays per month to earn the U.S. minimum wage of $1,160.

[miketheknife]

All I know is I just logged in and looked at the 'top tracks' list, and there is an irish boatload of songs that are now blacked out. Many of which I was listening to just a day or two ago.

[miketheknife]

Weird, I went back to the spotify window and lot of the ones that were blacked out are now playable. Does it take some time to load up or something?

[lotus]

I think it does, but are they maybe songs you have stored locally?

Now it makes me wonder if artists get their $.00029 per play if I play a local file.

[miketheknife]

Nope, nothing stored locally. It was weird because I clicked on 'Jack Sparrow' by Lonely Island and it said the track was not available. Then in the time I alt-tabbed over to Chrome and posted in this thread, it apparently went active and when I returned to Spotify via ALT-TAB the song was playable. Maybe it takes some time to scan my computer and see if there are any mp3's saved there or something.

[RayRay]

Does Facebook have some sort of ownership stake because they pimp FB multiple times an hour and in ads on the player.

[lotus]

Oh yeah, and now I believe that have actually forced new accounts to activate the FB features to be able to join. Some people were NOT happy.

[Jammer]

I've been really starting to work on different playlists within the program. For the family I have built a 1,200 song Christmas playlist and am now going to start working on different decades.