Spotify Considers Allowing Some Artists to Withhold Music From Free Service 

WSJ says, "Even on an experimental basis, it is a big reversal for Spotify, which has so far maintained unequivocally that its free, ad-supported service needed to have all the latest tunes so that it could compete with free sites such as YouTube."

Spotify, which has always been known to be a free and public service, is now looking to not offer a lot of mainstream for a price. Now, it does have a premium service where you can pay monthly to have the app allow you to have unlimited skips and not experience any ads. The issue is that a lot of mainstream artists, i.e. Taylor Swift, have removed their music from Spotify so that free users cannot listen to their songs. Coldplay originally had done this with their new album, but decided to reverse the decision after having meetings with Spotify executives. 

Spotify still has not made a final decision as to how they are going to handle this issue, but they definitely do not want to change from what their original basis is, which is a free service.This article covers the service and product part of what we have learned in class. It is about what a company has to offer its customers, users, and those that they are a middle man for. 

Questions to ask: is it a good idea for spotify to adhere to big artists by making their music only available if you pay? Will this have a negative outcome on the amount of people using the app? Will other music apps decide to do the same? 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-to-allow-some-musicians-to-withhold-music-from-free-service-1449603477

Posted by Joseph Brown at 8:42 PM