A new report today suggests that Spotify wasn’t willing to change its streaming model to get Adele’s multi-Grammy Award-winning album on the music streaming jukebox.
Apparently the singers record label were willing to let the album on Spotify, but they demanded that it should be available to Premium subscribers only.
According to sources close to Spotify the Swedish company couldn’t agree to those terms as it would have meant changing their business models – something they were unwilling to do.
The Swedish steaming site employs a policy where both premium and ad-supported users are allowed to access the exact same music library – something the Adele deal wouldn’t have allowed.
The Fast Company report claims: “Ultimately, Spotify decided it did not want to split up its content catalog, so as to create separate music libraries for paying subscribers and freemium users.
“Thus, it was essentially Spotify that decided against providing streaming access to Adele’s content for paying subscribers – not the other way around.”
It’s not the first time the majors have not been willing to have their music on Spotifty with bands like Coldplay, The Beatles, Metallica and other mainstream acts refusing to license its tracks to the digital jukebox.
According to the latest statistics the UK music industry revenue fell just 3.4% last year to £795m as the steady decline in the popularity of CDs was offset by a 25% increase in income from digital downloads and subscription services such as Spotify and Napster.
Trade body the BPI said that the 14% year-on-year decline in physical sales of CDs and DVDs in 2011 to £513m – singles sales plummeted 33%, albums fell 14% – was increasingly being countered by a surge in digital income.
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