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Why am I so energised by the culture of ownership, DRM, and interoperability? Heaven only knows but every press release or feature I read about Spotify sparks something in my head.
I have issues with the service - a whole raft of them. Had Spotify launched 10 years ago I suspect my views would be wholly different. it would have been the official, legal, alternative to Napster and the music industry's antidote to file sharing. But now, a decade on from Napster in the age of broadband I'm suspicious of motives.
It doesn't help when Spotify come out with comments like:
"We want to hand out consumer data we have to give to labels so they can target consumers better and communicate better."
Their privacy policy appears fine until you get to 7:
"Spotify reserves the right to make changes to this Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes to this policy we will notify you by posting the new version of the policy on the Spotify Website. It is your own responsibility to check the website for such postings from time to time."
I've never liked how they barely mention that it is (partly) supported by p2p - the default is to take up to 10% of your hard drive space (with encrypted / obscured data you can't access). A service that uses your storage and bandwidth should be very explicit about this.
Almost everything the music industry has done since Napster has been 1 step forward and 2 steps back. They gave us legal downloads but wrapped them in DRM, which meant us consumers never actually 'owned' the music, just a licence to play them. The brief dalliance with copy protection on compact discs just hammered home the point - we weren't to be trusted. We would copy and share our music willy if not nilly, all of us, unless we were prevented.
The downloads we were allowed were initially crappy quality 128 kbps in either DRM wrapped AAC or WMA and we could only play them on specific, licenced devices.
The faith between consumer and industry broke then and I suspect that whatever happens now this cannot be mended, Spotify or no Spotify.
The industry can't adapt now and it is dying. Too late. A generation now expects content for free, That seems to include music. That's the fault of the music industry as much as individual greed and that other Swedish based service.
I'm a music fan. I want to reward the artists and the producers financially, not the industry or the labels. I want to do it fairly but on my terms as part of an appreciative audience not as a consumer.
The income distribution model for Spotify is (almost certainly - I don't know the breakdown) weighted in similar if not worse distribution of profit to previous industry models, not that there is any sign that Spotify is profitable or will be in the immediate future.
So when Spotify announce improvements to the service, like this weeks 'offline' mode (for paid subscribers only) I'm still not interested.
I want to own my music. I don't want a subscription (unless real ownership is an element) - and many don't, even the Pirate Bay generation. A survey of 14-24 years olds in August 2009 conducted by the University of Hertfordshire revealed:
- 78% do not want to pay for a streaming service. (the vast majority of Spotify users are on the free, ad supported model)
- 87% say the ability to copy tracks across devices is important
- 89% still want to 'own' music.
Offline support in Spotify doesn't address this, at least for me. At least it highlights the local cacheing which has always been there. They've just tweaked the program to allow us to access it. With limitations of course.
Charles Arthur in the Guardian has rightly addressed this DRM issue. As he points out, it may not be DRM as we technically know it, but in effect it is the same. I accept that a service allowing 3,333 'downloads' on a £10/month subscription is unworkable if you could terminate your subs after a month and have a plethora of music on your computer, but this just highlights the problem of a subscription. You can't access the offline files without the Spotify client (and presumably even offline mode wouldn't work after a while without being able to check online that your subscription is active).
So, we're still in a subscription model with no ownership element (an element which is crippled by onerous music industry conditions if eMusic's decline is anything to go by).
I've made the point before that a subscription service is a temporary one. It's ok for tv and movies if you have no intention (or desire) for repeat viewing but for music my library is too important to me. It is backed up locally and offsite. I don't want to lose it.
In a subscription service I don't have that assurance. If Spotify closes down, so does my access to 'their' music. If they change their terms of service (or the price is hiked beyond reason) I'm stranded. If I decided to go with Spotify for 2 or 3 years my subscription costs would be a significant investment in something that could disappear at any time.
The free streaming element of Spotify is interesting as a different way of accessing music but not compelling for the same reasons and even this is not sustainable. The (allegedly temporary) suspension of new free accounts on Spotify in the UK to an invite only model is perhaps an early indication that this is not intended to be a freemium service in the long term. The Register has had a long look at the business model which backs this up.
So what do I want? Lower prices of downloads - of the online stores 7Digital appear to have the most competitive deals with many new albums at £5 each at a reasonable (if not ideal) 320kbps MP3 - but I want similar pricing across ALL music. Options for interoperable lossless formats. Assurance that a significant portion of my money is going to the artists and producers. If there has to be a subscription element to it then some ownership is required. It is a two way street after all.
I used to love eMusic. It is a subscription service offering a number of mp3 downloads for a monthly fee.
They had to cancel my membership a couple of years ago when they stopped supporting my preferred payment method. That has now changed and in response to their relentless emails I've been considering a return.
When I joined (about 3 years ago) I chose a UK price plan (no longer available) offering 90 downloads per month for £14.99. That was 17p per mp3.
The sound quality was often good but variable. At that price point I didn't mind. The joy of eMusic was to treat it as a trial of new music and recommendations of other users. I would often find something new and this would lead me to want to buy it again on CD to a) have a decent quality recording without the lossy compression of mp3 and, to a much lesser extent, b) to help reward the artist more financially than their cut of 17p provided.
It also led to buying concert tickets and other music from the artists I discovered.
This might not have been eMusic's business model but is how it worked for many of their customers.
It isn't the most straightforward consumer experience. If you miss your quota of downloads in a month they don't carry over. It takes a bit of effort and the most likely market to embrace this is the committed independent music lover. A perfect fit.
Now, it has all changed. It would appear that the business isn't working maybe as services which offer music discovery as their intention rather than consequence - Pandora and last.fm have stolen eMusic's thunder.
Even three years ago legal mp3 purchases were a rarity. Not now, as the music industry has finally accepted that copy protection of DRM punishes the honest purchasers of music. We now have DRM free tracks on iTunes and mp3s for sale a la carte just about everywhere. No doubt this has hurt eMusic too.
Whatever the reason the price point is now far less attractive. As The Register has highlighted the UK price plans now range from 24 songs per month at £9.99 to 30 per month at £17.99. So, from 17p per track to 38p in the space of three years and now only a third of the total number of songs available to me each month, limiting the discovery aspect of the service.
Not that the pricing is obvious. Their price plans are not mentioned on the home page and you have to enter your personal details before you can choose a plan. All they have is a carrot and stick approach of a no-commitment free introductory offer. Not enough now for people to stick around I suspect.
The forthcoming inclusion of some major label music (songs on Sony that are two years old) is likely to have no effect on the existing user base (who like their indie experimenting) as many of the user comments on the eMusic employees blog seem to bear out.
Many are angry that their loyalty is forgotten (many of the long standing plans are being cancelled and some customers are losing 2/3rds of their monthly quota) and I have to wonder if eMusic really understands their customers at all. The whole trial and experimentation nature of the site is now lost for me. P2p services, including legal streaming services such as Spotify and the likes of last.fm now seem more attractive.
A shame, but I feel this is the beginning of the end of this once great service. Sorry eMusic but you can stop with the emails now. I won't be coming back.