garybUK
Guest
Wrong, the other way round, you'd expect the USA as "Capitalists" to welcome as much competition as possible to drive down price.
Forget Netflix, you might want to swap but I as a user of spotify wouldn't!!
Apple Trying to Torpedo Spotify's U.S. Launch?
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Wrong, the other way round, you'd expect the USA as "Capitalists" to welcome as much competition as possible to drive down price.
Forget Netflix, you might want to swap but I as a user of spotify wouldn't!!
DudeDad
macrumors 6502a
Apple are just annoyed that they didn't get to implement this first into iTunes!I bet thats what that big data centre they are building is part of. Apple may not make lots of money off music sales through the store but you can bet it leads to big hardware sales for them!
You may be on to something...perhaps Apple knows it cannot stop Spotify in the United States, but it may be trying to delay it until after Apple's "similar" cloud service is up and running.
I'm all for choice, but we also have to support the artists -- they're the ones who get screwed the most (and I'm not talking about when they are on tour).
I can't believe how naive mac fanboys are. "Oh no, Apple is becoming the new Microsoft..." Both Apple and Microsoft are companies, not NGOs. They exist with the only purpose of making money, as much as they can. It's not personal, it's business. If Apple was not making these moves before, it was because it was too tiny to really compete with and put pressure on other companies. Now they can, and they do.
If Apple people were into the "let's make people's life easier, let's give the best technology to people", etc., they would not make more than 30 % profit with all their products (50% with some). Sell them cheaper, and more people would have access to them. But it's not about that: that's the selling strategy they use to MAKE MONEY.
And I'm very happy about that: thanks to that strategy, they tend to do different things than other brands, more quality/beautiful stuff that I don't mind paying an extra for. But that does not make them less greedy.
At least the villain Gates gives tones of money for research through the Gates Foundation for topics largely neglected by other funding sources (malaria research, for example).
If Apple people were into the "let's make people's life easier, let's give the best technology to people", etc., they would not make more than 30 % profit with all their products (50% with some). Sell them cheaper, and more people would have access to them. But it's not about that: that's the selling strategy they use to MAKE MONEY.
And I'm very happy about that: thanks to that strategy, they tend to do different things than other brands, more quality/beautiful stuff that I don't mind paying an extra for. But that does not make them less greedy.
At least the villain Gates gives tones of money for research through the Gates Foundation for topics largely neglected by other funding sources (malaria research, for example).
Reason077
macrumors 601
Not quite true. There are two types of free account:
"Spotify Open" which anyone can join, but is limited to 20 hours per month.
"Spotify Free", which is unlimited use but requires an invite code to join. Premium users get a couple of invite codes for Spotify Free to send out to their friends.
Are you seriously trying to draw a magic line between radio and this? if there is one, it's paper thin.
You can't possibly make a sound case that people aren't "really" listening on the radio but are with Spotify.
That's just a really weak point.
leroypants
Suspended
If anyone need to see the definition of a fanboy just look at any post by this guy. If you are not intelligent enough to see the difference between a program that shows ads in order to use and listen to music and illegally downloading music then i feel sorry for you.And how much money has she made off of touring with the people that heared her on Spotify and now want to see her whole act live?
That may be the most ignorant statement I have read in a long time.
NT1440
macrumors P6
Ah yes, the "I'm too lazy to come up with a counter argument so I'll just call them names and hope no one notices" approach. Very classy and intelligent.
Spotify is basically iTunes with a different distribution method. It has nothing in common with radio except that it is partly financed the same way. It would be very interesting to see an argument for anything else..
Google Adwords says Hello.
Air is free. And God is pretty Important, I guess
In all seriousness though, let's separate the Facts from the BS...
Spotify Reduces Piracy = BS
Anyone who downloads illegal music will put it on a CD, or on their HD or on their MP3 Player of choice. Spotify won't let you do that unless you sign up to the premium package so that means illegal downloaders are STILL downloading illegally.
Spotify Hurts the Music Industry = BS
It's the record labels that have AGREED to have their content on Spotify. If they are not making the return, then they can pull out. The fact that so many of them are signing up, is not for the revenue, but for Artist Exposure.
The more people listen to the back catalog, the more they are ikely to consider buying future albums (which may not appear on Spotify for several months after release).
Artists are not Making Money from Spotify = FACT
That's right. They're not. But Spoitfy isn't their only source of income. It sits alongside actual album sales, digital album sales, music tours etc and for the more popular and mainstream artists, sponsorship deals and TV/Radio "gigs". Again, Spotify just provides an avenue for greater exposure which then generates income further down the line through other channels.
Independent Artists/producers are not Making Money from Spotify = FACT
...but then I doubt the indies are making much elsewhere either. Seriously, this entire concept of "I work in the music industry and I should be paid" mantra is the biggest BS of all.
If you have chosen to work in music, then you've chosen it because you ENJOY music. In the same way a Graphic Design enjoys the creative process of design, and a Software programmer enjoys writing code.
And guess what? Graphic Designers are generally undervalued thanks to "template" farms and Software Developers have their software pirated all the time. It's not just the Music industry that has it's hurdles, every profession and industry out there is subject to "It's not fair".
Except for Apple. They're perfect in every way
Apple should know how many people listen to Pandora here in the states, then go to iTunes to buy the music that they listened to throughout the day.
Services like Pandora, Spotify, Slacker Radio, etc., offer musicians exposure, if nothing else.
We should all let Steve know this. I want to use Spotify!!
Stupid question: How is Pandora able to offer their (free) service here is the U.S., when there are establishments like iTunes, Amazon, etc?
Services like Pandora, Spotify, Slacker Radio, etc., offer musicians exposure, if nothing else.
We should all let Steve know this. I want to use Spotify!!
Stupid question: How is Pandora able to offer their (free) service here is the U.S., when there are establishments like iTunes, Amazon, etc?
Google Adwords says Hello.
Air is free. And God is pretty Important, I guess
In all seriousness though, let's separate the Facts from the BS...
Spotify Reduces Piracy = BS
Anyone who downloads illegal music will put it on a CD, or on their HD or on their MP3 Player of choice. Spotify won't let you do that unless you sign up to the premium package so that means illegal downloaders are STILL downloading illegally.
Spotify Hurts the Music Industry = BS
It's the record labels that have AGREED to have their content on Spotify. If they are not making the return, then they can pull out. The fact that so many of them are signing up, is not for the revenue, but for Artist Exposure.
The more people listen to the back catalog, the more they are ikely to consider buying future albums (which may not appear on Spotify for several months after release).
Artists are not Making Money from Spotify = FACT
That's right. They're not. But Spoitfy isn't their only source of income. It sits alongside actual album sales, digital album sales, music tours etc and for the more popular and mainstream artists, sponsorship deals and TV/Radio "gigs". Again, Spotify just provides an avenue for greater exposure which then generates income further down the line through other channels.
Independent Artists/producers are not Making Money from Spotify = FACT
...but then I doubt the indies are making much elsewhere either. Seriously, this entire concept of "I work in the music industry and I should be paid" mantra is the biggest BS of all.
If you have chosen to work in music, then you've chosen it because you ENJOY music. In the same way a Graphic Design enjoys the creative process of design, and a Software programmer enjoys writing code.
And guess what? Graphic Designers are generally undervalued thanks to "template" farms and Software Developers have their software pirated all the time. It's not just the Music industry that has it's hurdles, every profession and industry out there is subject to "It's not fair".
Except for Apple. They're perfect in every way
I swear to god, I haven't downloaded a single MP3 since i started beta-testing spotify back in -07. Before then, i had 152GB of music on my harddrive - now, nothing.
It's convinient to be able to access Spotify everwhere, even in the TV.
"Big brain" statements like this need to be addressed.
PERFORMING artists tour, session musicians, studio engineers, songwriters (with few exceptions) do not. They still work on producing the records, and need to be rewarded for their work. Please try to have a better understanding of the music industry, it might help your judgements.
per wikipedia - the business model:
Spotify is funded by paid subscriptions, adverts in the Spotify player for non-subscribers and music purchases from partner retailers.
In February 2009, the advertisements for non-paying users were reported as lasting 15 seconds[26] though in May 2009, Neowin reported that the approximate length has increased to 30 seconds.[27] The interval between advertisements is not constant.
A payment of a monthly fee upgrades an account to "Premium" status, which removes advertisements, increases the bitrate to 320kbps and allows usage of mobile clients for iOS, Android and Symbian devices. On December 2, 2009, Spotify launched "Premium ecards" (premium codes), which upgrade an account to "Premium" status for 1, 3 or 6 months.[28]
In March 2009, Spotify began to offer music downloads at £0.99 per track in partnership with the 7digital music store.[29] This feature was moved from a context menu to an explicit "Buy" link in mid-October 2009. In May 2010, Spotify introduced "Unlimited", which allows unlimited advert-free playback for one month for half the price of "Premium"; however, it does not include any other special feature of Premium.[11]
per wikipedia - the technical model:
The contents of each client's cache is summarized in an index which is sent to the Spotify stream hub upon connecting to the service. This index is then used to inform other clients about additional peers they can connect to for fetching streamed data for individual tracks being played. This is accommodated by each client, upon startup, acting as a server listening for incoming connections from other Spotify users, as well as intuitively connecting to other users to exchange cached data as appropriate. There are currently no official details from the developers about how many connections and how much of a user's upstream bandwidth the Spotify client will use when streaming to other users; the Spotify client offers no way for the user to configure this.
Audio streams are in the Vorbis format at q5 (approx ~160 kbit/s)[24], or optional q9 (approx ~320kbit/s)[25] for Premium subscribers, the highest streaming rate for any online service.
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given the above, there is NO WAY spotify will ever grace the bits of my machines
Spotify is funded by paid subscriptions, adverts in the Spotify player for non-subscribers and music purchases from partner retailers.
In February 2009, the advertisements for non-paying users were reported as lasting 15 seconds[26] though in May 2009, Neowin reported that the approximate length has increased to 30 seconds.[27] The interval between advertisements is not constant.
A payment of a monthly fee upgrades an account to "Premium" status, which removes advertisements, increases the bitrate to 320kbps and allows usage of mobile clients for iOS, Android and Symbian devices. On December 2, 2009, Spotify launched "Premium ecards" (premium codes), which upgrade an account to "Premium" status for 1, 3 or 6 months.[28]
In March 2009, Spotify began to offer music downloads at £0.99 per track in partnership with the 7digital music store.[29] This feature was moved from a context menu to an explicit "Buy" link in mid-October 2009. In May 2010, Spotify introduced "Unlimited", which allows unlimited advert-free playback for one month for half the price of "Premium"; however, it does not include any other special feature of Premium.[11]
per wikipedia - the technical model:
The contents of each client's cache is summarized in an index which is sent to the Spotify stream hub upon connecting to the service. This index is then used to inform other clients about additional peers they can connect to for fetching streamed data for individual tracks being played. This is accommodated by each client, upon startup, acting as a server listening for incoming connections from other Spotify users, as well as intuitively connecting to other users to exchange cached data as appropriate. There are currently no official details from the developers about how many connections and how much of a user's upstream bandwidth the Spotify client will use when streaming to other users; the Spotify client offers no way for the user to configure this.
Audio streams are in the Vorbis format at q5 (approx ~160 kbit/s)[24], or optional q9 (approx ~320kbit/s)[25] for Premium subscribers, the highest streaming rate for any online service.
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given the above, there is NO WAY spotify will ever grace the bits of my machines
trainwrecka
macrumors 6502a
I'm sure they would sell audio only of TV shows for 99 cents. The video is what makes the price go up.
Stingray454
macrumors 6502a
Same here. Oh wait, I think I downloaded a song that I couldn't find on spotify, but it's only 1 in about 2 years. I love the ability to include both local mp3's and iTunes music in your spotifty playlists. I use it for all my music now.
Tbh the best thing about it is the huge selection and complete lack of buffering time. At parties when someone requests a song - any song basicly - you can have it playing in high quality in just a few seconds. Without ads, interruptions, pausing for buffering or anything, for $9 a month. Brilliant service.
a cat *miaow*
macrumors regular
"If you're using Spotify you might as well just torrent. It's a hairs-breadth away from that."
Ummm, not really is it? In fact in no way whatsoever! Spoify is legal music. You want free music? Get the version with adverts. You don't want adverts? Pay for the service. It's a fantastic service that Apple should be worried about and consumers should be happy about.
Ummm, not really is it? In fact in no way whatsoever! Spoify is legal music. You want free music? Get the version with adverts. You don't want adverts? Pay for the service. It's a fantastic service that Apple should be worried about and consumers should be happy about.
It's not just Apple that doesn't like Spotify - those of us who are trying to make a living from music don't like it either.
excactly.
The concept is cool, it is just too cheap in order to be sustainable. I am sure that 99c for a track download is cheap enough to be affordable by anybody.
10.000 downloads (which in many countries mean a Golden record award) will make an artist earn about 3000USD, pre-tax! That means about 1500-2000USD.
Remember that there are thousands of independent artists in this industry, not only the Lady Gagas or Beyonce!
junior
macrumors 6502a
I'm in the music business. Find your own link (takes what? 1 minute?).
aegisdesign
macrumors 6502a
Apple are in a bad position. The record industry thinks it was screwed over by Apple. The TV/Movie industry thinks it's going to get screwed by Apple.
They're all backing people OTHER than Apple. This morning I saw an advert for Windows7 whereby the chap in the advert was going on about how he could watch or listen to media on his home PC whilst in another country. That's a feature iTunes used to have which Apple removed under pressure from the record companies. Yeah, that's right, the media companies trust Microsoft more than Apple.
Something is wrong at Apple.
The big four are already on board. Last time I heard they paid around $10 000 each in the beginning to get 3%-10% ownership. Now its worth around $250 million. So its really hard for me to understand how Apple could convince that service like Spotify which labels can directly control isn't good option for them.
gnasher729
Suspended
Why would any company welcome anything that drives down the prices _they charge_? Customers want competition between companies they buy from. Companies want competition between their suppliers. Companies do _not_ want competition that competes with them.
Gasu E.
macrumors 603
I love the logic here. Musicians don't get enough share of their music sales. So let's fix this by giving them absolutely nothing.
This is the kind of convoluted logic used by thieves trying to justify their own crimes.