One of the latest beneficiaries of sharing music online, according to TorrentFreak, turns out to be the streaming music service Spotify:
Without The Pirate Bay, Spotify may have never turned into the success it is today. Ten years ago record labels were so desperate to find an answer to the ever-growing piracy problem that they agreed to take a gamble. Now, more than a decade later, Spotify has turned into a billion-dollar company, with pirate roots.
Last autumn the EU suppressed a 300-page copyright study showing yet again that copyright infringement does not harm sales. It often helps sales. Both factors have been known for a long time, with other studies going back to the 1990s.
Earlier on SN:
- Spotify Files for IPO After Losing $1.5 Billion in 2017
- Spotify Raises Cash to Fight Apple for Streaming Music Market
- Band Earns $20K for Silent Album on Spotify
Related Stories
Indie funk band Vulfpeck hacked the Spotify royalty system in order to fund a tour of free concerts. Spotify pays 0.5 cents for every track that is played for at least 30 seconds. Vulfpeck's latest album, "Sleepify" is 10 tracks of silence lasting 31-32 seconds each. The band asked fans to put the album on repeat and play it while they slept.
So far, they've racked up over $20,000 in royalties, but Spotify isn't so happy about the situation. Now the hard part is getting Spotify to actually pay out so that fans can see the band live.
According to Techcrunch Spotify has raised $1 billion in convertible debt to fight Apple Music, but the terms of the deal may prove to be difficult if Spotify under performs:
On-demand streaming music is inevitable, so Spotify is taking whatever fuel it can get to win the race against Apple. Whoever can sign up customers faster to consume their data and network effect could earn money off them for a long, long time. So it makes sense that Spotify would be willing to raise money at ugly, exploitative terms now for a better chance at earning those riches later.
...
But here's the catch.If Spotify doesn't perform well, some aggressive deal terms could cost it a lot of money.
TPG and Dragoneer get to convert the debt to equity at a 20% discount of whatever share price Spotify sets for an eventual IPO. And if it doesn't IPO within the next year, that discount goes up 2.5% every extra six months.
Spotify also has to pay 5% annual interest on the debt, and 1% more every six months up to a total of 10%. And finally, TPG and Dragoneer can sell their shares just 90 days after the IPO, before the 180-day lockup period ends for Spotify's employees and other investors.
(Originally spotted via Hacker News).
Spotify has finally filed for an initial public offering:
Spotify, the world's largest music streaming service, has filed for an initial public offering today. The Sweden-based company co-founded by Daniel Ek, who has remained its CEO since its 2006 inception, and Martin Lorentzon has more than 71 million paying users as of December 2017. The company also enjoys an overall user base that includes ad-supported free listeners of 159 million, far outpacing the competition from Apple, Google, Tidal, and others. Spotify will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SPOT."
Spotify will be offering a direct listing, meaning that its shares can be traded on the open market sooner than with a more conventional IPO, as Spotify doesn't intend to raise a large amount of capital with its IPO. According to CNBC, the price of Spotify shares traded on private markets indicate the company could be worth as much as $23 billion.
The filing gives us one of our best looks yet at Spotify's finances, with the company posting revenue last year of €4,090 million (nearly $5 billion) and a net loss of -€1,235 million (or ~$1.5 billion) for the same period.
Also at TechCrunch.
A decade ago this week, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström were all found guilty of 'assisting in making copyright content available' via their site, The Pirate Bay. Each was sentenced to a year in jail and their fines totaled over $3 million. Now ten years on, the site has a life of its own without those four. It has been the target of a many takedown notices and has even been blocked multiple times.
Ten years ago this week, four men were found guilty and sentenced to prison for running The Pirate Bay. At the time, Peter Sunde said that the site would continue, no matter what. A decade on he has been proven absolutely right and that in itself is utterly remarkable.
Earlier on SN:
The Pirate Bay Turns 15 Years Old (2018)
How The Pirate Bay Helped Spotify Become a Success (2018)
The Man from Earth Sequel "Pirated" on The Pirate Bay - By Its Creators (2018)
How The US Pushed Sweden to Take Down The Pirate Bay (2017)
What's a Digital Copy Worth? Not Much, Says Peter Sunde's New Machine (2015)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday March 20 2018, @07:55PM (3 children)
The end is power. "Ownership" of the culture itself, of people's thoughts and memories. Power and influence over masses of people.
That's why when shown proof that sharing actually helps their sales and makes them more money *they simply don't care.*
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 20 2018, @08:30PM (2 children)
I think you're largely correct, it is about control.
The big media companies have spent the last 30 years or so buying out their smaller rivals, until we are at the point where there is almost no competition really left (I am thinking mostly about music here).
Now that they have total control over the market, from creation to delivery they have turned the popular music industry into a widget making system, where there are a bunch of market segments (girl pop, heavy metal, country, punk, fill in your own genre here) and they supply a pre-made product to fill each of the market segments they have created.
Music being what it is of course, there are plenty of people making their own and plenty of fans keen to listen, but I can't see any way for an independent artist to become mainstream without being co-opted by one of the main players.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday March 20 2018, @09:28PM
http://www.cdbaby.com/ [cdbaby.com]
I visited their warehouse once. It's huge. I mean like you could fit a 747 inside it. They had lots of employees.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:00AM
New artists are coming up on places like YouTube or SoundCloud, using cheap equipment.
Turning that into a career can be more difficult, and success may be defined by the ability to attract interest from a big label, but musicians have more options than ever. They can upload their own stuff, get ad revenue and crowdfunding, and communicate directly with fans.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday March 20 2018, @09:27PM (5 children)
http://www.radioparadise.com [radioparadise.com]
Mostly rock but there is a much wider variety that gets played now and then.
I use their iPhone App. If I hear a song I particularly like I look at the name on the album cover that's displayed while the song is playing. Then I write the artist and album in a Notes page.
If I can't read the album's name because the type is too small, I'll use "-" and the name of the song:
"the chipmunks - happy birthday to you".
I presently own about 400 music CDs. From time to time I go to a brick-and-mortar record store so I can buy a half dozen or so.
Before I got my iPhone, I listened on my box then recorded that info in a text file on the desktop.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:20PM (4 children)
Anymore, I find audio CDs too bulky, and as for those jewel cases, those waste so much space that if limited to 1 CD per full sized case, they only barely beat the old vinyl LP. A 64G flash drive holds almost as much info as a stack of 100 CDs, and is way smaller. And if the audio is encoded in a decent lossy format such as Opus at 128kbs, that's a further 10 fold increase in information density over CD audio. Even if you insist on FLAC, it's still 2 to 3 times more audio info in the same space.
Why do you bother with audio CD?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by leftover on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:28PM (1 child)
Don't know about you or MDC but I buy CDs because they prove I own the right to play the music. Whenever possible I buy them "directly" from the band at live shows. Really have no idea how many there are in my stash but it is far more than I have time to listen to more than a fraction.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:20AM
I would have sold mine but it's piano not singing
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:32PM
-ists.
Also to have a reliable backup.
I've thought about it quite carefully, then firmly decided I will never purchase digital tracks.
But I have a 256 GB iGadget 7. I do not actually play my CDs anymore, I rip them then load them on my iPhone. All 320 kbps so as to enable The Reanimated Undead Corpse Of Steve Jobs to play nice with Open Sores audio software.
I at first ripped to 192, but over quite a long period of time realized that if I listen to 192 all day long, it makes me feel tired. That doesn't happen with 320. At least not yet.
I rip with some manner of half-assed LOONUCKS software. It gets good results but had _I_ written it, it wouldn't have been half-assed.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @10:58PM
Bit how long will your flash drive hold that data uncorrupted?