Name: Music executives explain the problem with Spotify’s business model
Uploaded: 2015-07-14
Duration: 4 min 53 s
Description: Spotify

[ MUSIC ] What's your problem with Spotify? My problem with Spotify is free should not be a turn on and what. Daniel [ UNKNOWN ] fails to recognize is he hasn't been a good partner to the community, to the creative community He has a great service, but there is a free platform that is ad supported that does not make money, that will ultimately implode upon itself. He's gotta find a way to have people to continue to fall in love with the product, but love it enough to pay for it, cuz music has value and If you truly value it, paying $ 10 a month, you should be proud to pay at least $ 10 a month for all the great music you have. So he's got to understand [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] Come on everybody. [ APPLAUSE ] Yeah. [ APPLAUSE ] So he's just got to understand that if he's not going to support this community, then we're not going to support him. If you don't support him, you talked about how he has to be able to build this business. If you don't support him by doing things like pulling music off of it, can he build that business? Or do you basically defacto, make sure he can't? Well you know, we're not looking to put him out of business. We're looking to have him be A better partner cuz what he's built is actually a very strong platform, but if he doesn't support us back, we won't be able to afford to continue artists and support what he is building. So, I'm not sure if he's more in. Interested in just being very wealthy, or if he really does care about the music community. Scooter, let you me ask you. You, among other things, have a small investment in Spotify. To my [ LAUGH ] So, why is Scott wrong? Scott isn't wrong. Before, when I was in college, well you gotta let me finish before you boo. [ LAUGH ] When I was in college Napster came out and the entire music industry didn't have conversations, they ignored them. And they watched technology kick our ****. And that has happened every single time. Our entire industry was actually created by technology. The idea that the radio came about, actually made an industry for us to have in the first place, and every single time We try to fight technology it kicks our **** and it shifts. So the way I looked at was Daniel was doing something very disruptive and we were on a list of 30 under 30 list together and I called everyone on the list introduced myself and I met Daniel and it wasn't in the states yet we became friends I saw what he was doing And I think the best way for me to help Scott win his argument, because I agree with him. And I think for all my artists and the fact that I want content to have value. Is to be able to call as an investor in the company and tell Daniel I think he's wrong. And I'd do that. I'd say look Daniel, I understand you're bringing people in. And he has because he's created this consumer loyalty with Spotify. And he. Even recently we saw other competitors come, and their numbers shot up. That being said, Daniel is starting to listen because I'm not attacking him or going at this throat and saying " I wanna kill you" or " I wanna shut you down ". When you have an act like Taylor, you can do certain things. Granted it's a slightly different relationship, but you have some acts that could- Oh yeah, absolutely. But not a lot of managers or label owners are in the position we are. And they can't take their music off Spotify and make a difference the way Taylor can. And I applaud Taylor for what she and Scott did. At the same time, I'm choosing to do it a little bit differently of saying, look we're invested. We're your partner and we're out there publicly rooting for you, but you need to hear what we're saying. And I can tell you and Scott does know this behind the scenes he's slowly starting to understand that And it will get to a point where we **** head, but you do that with your partners. Do you think Daniel, slash bodify, is being honest with artists when the checks get cut, do you think they're cutting the checks they're supposed to be cutting? Do you want to answer that first? Well I think that they are. I don't think there's any lack of transparency. It's just that it's a very young platform. And the biggest problem that we have overall is he's trying to say one science fits all. That every thing should be free. Well when you've created value with an artist and music those should be in the premium platform and that was part of our conversation. Well with some of our established artist. Why don't you make your premium service more robust and make them available in premium only, and he just refuses to do that and puts everything into free. But what Scooter is talking about, we are making headway, there are a couple of moments, so I think he is heading our way and you know, I'm not going to be a hypocrite. We have a lot of music that's on Spotify. As far as a promotional vehicle, it's very good. He's just gotta understand that you can't have an eternal, free, ad- supported platform. [ MUSIC ]