Spotify Founder Daniel Ek responds to Taylor Swift
In what is possibly the most data-backed response to the long-standing debate between Spotify and artists, the streaming service’s CEO and founder Daniel Ek has published a blog post in direct retort to the influx of distain following Taylor Swift’s decision to pull her entire catalogue from Spotify.
While Swift and her label Big Machine maintain it’s unfair to ‘superfans’ who want to invest in their favourite artists, Ek said Spotify aim to build a “new music economy” that will eventually deem piracy obsolete. And apparently it’s working, EK said Spotify have paid rightsholders over US$2 billion since its inception.
“Quincy Jones posted on Facebook that “Spotify is not the enemy; piracy is the enemy”. You know why? Two numbers: Zero and Two Billion. Piracy doesn’t pay artists a penny – nothing, zilch, zero,” Ek writes. “Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists. A billion dollars from the time we started Spotify in 2008 to last year and another billion dollars since then.”
One of Spotify’s biggest hurdles since it formed in 2008 has been convincing artists they can make a profit when their music is streamed on the service. Earlier this year Spotify created a dedicated website to help artists understand its business model and royalty rates, but that hasn’t stopped acts like Aloe Blacc voicing his frustration with the service.
“The abhorrently low rates songwriters are paid by streaming services—enabled by outdated federal regulations— are yet another indication our work is being devalued in today’s marketplace.,” Blacc wrote for Wired.com earlier this month.
Ek has hit back with actual figures given to the rightholders of Taylor Swift’s catalogue: “At our current size, payouts for a top artist like Taylor Swift (before she pulled her catalog) are on track to exceed $6 million a year, and that’s only growing – we expect that number to double again in a year.
“Any way you cut it, one thing is clear – we’re paying an enormous amount of money to labels and publishers for distribution to artists and songwriters, and significantly more than any other streaming service.”
On the gripe that Spotify hurts digital and physical sales, Ek said the complaint has no basis when sales are down in territories that don’t have access to Spotify. “[…] the whole correlation falls apart when you realize a simple fact: downloads are dropping just as quickly in markets where Spotify doesn’t exist. Canada is a great example, because it has a mature music market very similar to the US. Spotify launched in Canada a few weeks ago. In the first half of 2014, downloads declined just as dramatically in Canada – without Spotify – as they did everywhere else. If Spotify is cannibalising downloads, who’s cannibalising Canada?”
Perhaps the strongest point of Ek’s argument that piracy is where artists should be pointing their fingers is his reminder that listening habits have changed and that while Swift’s latest LP 1989 sold over $1.2 million in the US in its first week of release, fans are still turning to illegitimate platforms to own it.
:: REPORT – TAYLOR SWIFT 1989 SALES BUZZ IN AUS/US
“And sure enough, if you looked at the top spot on The Pirate Bay last week, there was 1989…”
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