For Music
In the United States of America Spotify single handedly changed the music industry within the past five years because they supplied better ways to stream and share music. Now in 2014, Beats Music has come into the picture with a very similar creative browser for music. At first, Apple’s itunes eliminated CDs then Spotify and Beats Music, proved to be that much better than itunes. With Spotify and Beats Music the consumer no longer has to buy individual albums or songs but rather pay a monthly fee to receive their musical fix. Recently musicians have gone public with their dislike for Spotify and Beats Music because they feel they are not paid enough for their work.
A Swedish man named Daniel Ek had an idea that he dreamt up that would rock the Swedish music industry: Spotify. In the late 1990s, the Swedish Government ordered for every citizen to purchase a computer that could access the World Wide Web (1). From here the Swede’s discovered Napster and stole millions upon millions of songs. “In 1999 worldwide revenue reached an all-time high of $27 billion, by 2008 it had almost halved.”(1) In 2006, Ek had a new idea for record labels and how they make a profit directly from their product. His idea was very simple; rent music rather than purchase a song or album. “The music industry was in the shitter,” said Ek. “What did they have to lose?” Without the Internet none of this would have been possible because the Swede’s would have never downloaded Napster and the world would still acquire individual albums.
Since 2008, Dr. Dre has built a side business to his already worldwide empire of music. Jimmy Lovine and Dr. Dre teamed up to make in ear, over ear headphones and speakers these products changed how the average person listened to their favorite music. In January, of 2014 Beats Music hit the Internet to give Spotify a run for its money. They have features that innovate beyond Spotify but one catch for Beats is that they don’t offer the ability to stream for free. Beats music and our tracking devices, aka smartphones, have teamed up to make very cool and revolutionary ideas for discovering new music. Their claim to fame is they have playlists for literally anything imaginable. On the Beats music app, a screen will appear that reads like Mad Libs and you put down whatever you are doing or feeling.
With all the changes in the music industry, working musicians in the past year have gone public about how they don’t get paid enough for each stream. Only Spotify has taken the heat from the artists because Beats Music has not been around long enough to draw enough attention. Lead singer of the band Radiohead and Atoms for Peace, Thom Yorke, had this to say about Spotify, "I feel like as musicians we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what's happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry. It is the last desperate fart of a dying corpse.”(3) Other artists such as David Byrne, lead singer of the 1980’s new wave band the Talking Heads, said, “the internet will suck all creative content out of the world.”(4) Many musicians have strong feelings about how the music industry is changing because they started off in much different business. It can be hard for these guys to accept the new wave of technology because they don’t make as much money for their work.
On March 25, 2014 Spotify announced that they would now offer their premium music deal for half the price for college students. The new price for current college students would be five dollars a month rather than ten. “Jeff Levick, Spotify’s chief marketing and revenue officer, says similar program in Britain has increased the number of paying Spotify customers over the last year.” (5) Spotify has moved their target audience to the ages between 18-24 because they want this generation to stream music rather than buy individual albums. “Global music revenue slumped 3.9 percent last year to $15 billion. Digital revenue — particularly from subscription services such as Spotify or Beats Music — continue to grow.” (6) With decline in the overall music business Spotify has continued to come up with news ways to produce money.
Money is the only problem that the upset musicians have with the new music industry. “The trouble with Spotify these days is that its desktop interface could do with a radical overhaul, and it’s arguably flushing revenue down the drain by ignoring the demographic clamoring for a family subscription option,” said Matt Peckham. (7) When taking a look at Spotify and Beats Music the main attraction for Beats is that a family can pay fifteen dollars a month for five mobile devices. All the competitor companies are still ten dollars a month for an individual person. The other attraction for Spotify users is that, they have more options for mobile devices where Beats Music only has an option for Android, iOS, Web and Windows. “Beats Music has been described as a hybrid of Spotify and Pandora.”(7) Each program has its downsides but have more than twenty million songs to stream.
Bibliography:
In the United States of America Spotify single handedly changed the music industry within the past five years because they supplied better ways to stream and share music. Now in 2014, Beats Music has come into the picture with a very similar creative browser for music. At first, Apple’s itunes eliminated CDs then Spotify and Beats Music, proved to be that much better than itunes. With Spotify and Beats Music the consumer no longer has to buy individual albums or songs but rather pay a monthly fee to receive their musical fix. Recently musicians have gone public with their dislike for Spotify and Beats Music because they feel they are not paid enough for their work.
A Swedish man named Daniel Ek had an idea that he dreamt up that would rock the Swedish music industry: Spotify. In the late 1990s, the Swedish Government ordered for every citizen to purchase a computer that could access the World Wide Web (1). From here the Swede’s discovered Napster and stole millions upon millions of songs. “In 1999 worldwide revenue reached an all-time high of $27 billion, by 2008 it had almost halved.”(1) In 2006, Ek had a new idea for record labels and how they make a profit directly from their product. His idea was very simple; rent music rather than purchase a song or album. “The music industry was in the shitter,” said Ek. “What did they have to lose?” Without the Internet none of this would have been possible because the Swede’s would have never downloaded Napster and the world would still acquire individual albums.
Since 2008, Dr. Dre has built a side business to his already worldwide empire of music. Jimmy Lovine and Dr. Dre teamed up to make in ear, over ear headphones and speakers these products changed how the average person listened to their favorite music. In January, of 2014 Beats Music hit the Internet to give Spotify a run for its money. They have features that innovate beyond Spotify but one catch for Beats is that they don’t offer the ability to stream for free. Beats music and our tracking devices, aka smartphones, have teamed up to make very cool and revolutionary ideas for discovering new music. Their claim to fame is they have playlists for literally anything imaginable. On the Beats music app, a screen will appear that reads like Mad Libs and you put down whatever you are doing or feeling.
With all the changes in the music industry, working musicians in the past year have gone public about how they don’t get paid enough for each stream. Only Spotify has taken the heat from the artists because Beats Music has not been around long enough to draw enough attention. Lead singer of the band Radiohead and Atoms for Peace, Thom Yorke, had this to say about Spotify, "I feel like as musicians we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what's happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry. It is the last desperate fart of a dying corpse.”(3) Other artists such as David Byrne, lead singer of the 1980’s new wave band the Talking Heads, said, “the internet will suck all creative content out of the world.”(4) Many musicians have strong feelings about how the music industry is changing because they started off in much different business. It can be hard for these guys to accept the new wave of technology because they don’t make as much money for their work.
On March 25, 2014 Spotify announced that they would now offer their premium music deal for half the price for college students. The new price for current college students would be five dollars a month rather than ten. “Jeff Levick, Spotify’s chief marketing and revenue officer, says similar program in Britain has increased the number of paying Spotify customers over the last year.” (5) Spotify has moved their target audience to the ages between 18-24 because they want this generation to stream music rather than buy individual albums. “Global music revenue slumped 3.9 percent last year to $15 billion. Digital revenue — particularly from subscription services such as Spotify or Beats Music — continue to grow.” (6) With decline in the overall music business Spotify has continued to come up with news ways to produce money.
Money is the only problem that the upset musicians have with the new music industry. “The trouble with Spotify these days is that its desktop interface could do with a radical overhaul, and it’s arguably flushing revenue down the drain by ignoring the demographic clamoring for a family subscription option,” said Matt Peckham. (7) When taking a look at Spotify and Beats Music the main attraction for Beats is that a family can pay fifteen dollars a month for five mobile devices. All the competitor companies are still ten dollars a month for an individual person. The other attraction for Spotify users is that, they have more options for mobile devices where Beats Music only has an option for Android, iOS, Web and Windows. “Beats Music has been described as a hybrid of Spotify and Pandora.”(7) Each program has its downsides but have more than twenty million songs to stream.
It would be interesting to
see what the music industry would look like today if the World Wide Web were
not with us. There would be no pirating
music, streaming or sharing on social platforms. Thankfully that is not the world we live in
and now we have multiple great options for streaming music. One quote came to mind in regards to Thom
Yorke and David Byrne speaking out against Spotify; it was said by Mark
Zuckerberg, “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few
enemies.” In the end, either company
will make a customer happy because a ten-dollar monthly fee to stream all the
music possible is not a bad deal.
Bibliography:
1.) Lynskey,
Dorian. "Is Daniel Ek, Spotify founder, going to save the music industry …
or destroy it?." thegurdian.com. N.p., 9 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Mar.
2014.
<http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/10/daniel-ek-spotify-streaming-music>.
2.) Wood, Molly.
"Beats Hopes to Serve Up Music in a Novel Way ." NYTimes.com.
N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/technology/personaltech/beats-hopes-to-serve-up-new-sounds-in-a-novel-way.html?hpw&rref=technology&_r=0>.
3.) Dredge,
Stuart. "Thom Yorke calls Spotify 'the last desperate fart of a dying
corpse'." The Gurdian. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
<http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/07/spotify-thom-yorke-dying-corpse>.
4.) Bryne,
David. "David Bryne." The Guardian . N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar.
2014.
<http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world>.
5.) "Spotify slashes prices for US College
Students." kansas.com. N.p., 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.
6.) Chmieleski, Dawn. "Music Piracy Goes
Mobile ." redcode.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.
7.) Peckham, Matt. "13 Streaming Music
Services Compared by Price, Quality, Catalog Size and More." Time.com.
N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-wbGBc4BuY
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