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Business News Digital
New messaging highlights Spotify hold outs
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 20 May 2014
In what seems to be a new move, Spotify has posted a frank message within its player alongside listings for some of the new albums that it hasn’t been allowed to stream, yet.
While some artists (with the contractual right to veto) are withholding their content from Spotify et al completely, even though their labels have deals in place with the streaming services, a small group of other mainly big name acts have given access to archive content, but have chosen to delay the delivery of new releases to the streaming platforms.
This may be because of exclusivity arrangements with iTunes specifically, or simply in the belief that initial download sales will be higher if new long players are kept off the freemium and subscription services for a few months. Though whatever the motives, it’s annoying for the streaming companies who are trying to provide a one-stop shop to all music content.
Whereas such albums were just inaccessible without explanation on Spotify in the past, Kieron Donoghue from Playlists.net noted yesterday that new LPs from Coldplay, The Black Keys and Beyonce are now all listed within the firm’s player but with the message: “The artist or their representatives have decided not to release this album on Spotify. We are working on it and hope they will change their mind soon”.
The messaging only seems to be appearing alongside records where Spotify expects to get full delivery of the music down the line, and where single releases have been made available to the service already, ie the company isn’t going to start listing all and any albums not licensed to it with the “we are working on it” promise.
But still, it will be interesting to see how Coldplay, The Black Keys, Beyonce et al respond. Spotify may say it’s simply communicating the facts to its customers – which it is – though you can’t help thinking the message is also designed to put a little pressure on the artist to release their content to fans using the streaming platform. Which may or may not work.
