Spotify Retreats To Invite-Only In UK 130
Barence writes "Music streaming service Spotify has been forced to enact tight restrictions on new members in the UK, and revert back to an invite-only system. The company has decided to take drastic action following the release of its iPhone and Android apps earlier this week, which have created 'huge demand in the UK,' according to Spotify. People who don't want to put their hand in their pocket and don't have any friends can sign up to a waiting list instead."
Re:This is a good thing... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the big labels are shareholders on Spotify so they do have seen the opportunity.
Shareholders in Spotify on 10/7 2009
Bolag Andel Rosello (Lorentzon) 28,6%
Instructus (Ek) 23,3%
Northzone Ventures 11,9%
Enzymix Systems (F. HagnÃ) 5,8%
Sony BMG 5,8%
Universal Music 4,8%
Warner Music 3,8%
Wellington IV Tech 3,8%
Creandum II LP 3,5%
Swiftic (Strigéus) 2,6%
Creandum II KB 2,4%
EMI 1,9%
Merlin 1,0%
SBH Capital (B. HagnÃ) 0,8%
Also: "The service is not currently available in the United States or Canada. Spotify Founder, Daniel Ek, has expressed a desire to change this. It is expected that Spotify will be available in the United States before the end of 2009.[20]"
Re:This is a good thing... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Spotify (Score:1, Informative)
I'm currently in Russia and it's not available here, not even premium. So it's definitely NOT available even in Europe... in EU, maybe..
Re:spotify poor security (Score:1, Informative)
God forbid you use google: http://creativecommons.org/audio
cdbaby.com is a great place to buy direct from artists if you insist on paying for recorded music (that's so last century, but whatever floats your boat..)
Re:Spotify (Score:1, Informative)
Nope. Not here in the Netherlands, either.
Re:Is it just me (Score:4, Informative)
Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You have a huge catalogue of movies at your fingertips - as long as you pay for the right. I don't find the idea of paying a small fee to have a lot of content accessible pretty much whenever you want (as opposed to when the tv channels (movies) or radio (music) decides to play it) that outrageous.
I don't think this is relevant. I don't notice any bandwidth-problems at all. Maybe it would have been a point 10 years ago, but today, when my friends laugh at me for "only" having a 12Mbit connection, I don't think we need to worry about that.
Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You don't have every movie ever made available, but you don't expect that either. The point is that you do have a lot available - when you want it. If you really want to listen to Metallica, buy their CDs or wait for the Spotify catalogue to grow.
Noone said Spotify would be the alpha and omega of all your music needs. It just provides a large catalogue for you - either for free, or for a small fee (for which you also get better sound quality btw, 320kb/s instead if 160kb/s if you wish). If a song you want to listen to is not on there, or if you really want to own it so you can listen to it everywhere, noone's stopping you from buying the CD.
Personally, I use the free version (for now). I like the idea that I have a lot of the music I listen to available and that I can listen to it at work. I like the fact that if a friend recommends a band to me, I can more often than not just check it out immediately.
Re:Spotify (Score:4, Informative)
Pandora listeners can ask for a particular song to be included in a playlist (station) but what I really like about it is that we don't have to. I set up a new station by seeding it with song titles or artist names as exemplars. Pandora runs with that and puts together a song list for me. I can "reshape" any of my stations at any time by adding other song or artist exemplars (or by removing exemplars). I did this just recently by adding Ruby and the Romantics as an exemplar to my "oldies" station. Now, I'm being (re-)exposed to a wide variety of records from the 1950's and 1960's made by black vocal groups (so-called "race records"). Forgot how good that stuff was!
With Pandora, I don't have to build a playlist song-by-song and I like it that way. Pandora will suggest music from genre Y that their algorithms tell them might be enjoyable to someone who listens to genre X by playing songs of genre Y from time to time. If the algorithm screws up, all I have to do is click the "thumbs down" icon and the premium player smoothly fades out and goes to the next song. I will never hear that song again on that station. This approach gently exposes one to new artists and related musical genres. I would never have heard of the Mexican acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela or a rock group from Nashville called The Addiction had I not been introduced to them by Pandora's algorithms. And I would have been the poorer for it.
Even better is that, for your $3USD per month, you get a company that clearly values (because it listens to) its listeners. Almost exactly one year ago, when it looked like they might have to shut down because the RIAA wanted to charge them twice what they were charging broadcast radio stations to play songs, I wrote them and offered my support. I'd been using the free version until then and didn't have any particular reason to "go premium" (they didn't have the new Adobe AIR premium player at that time). So, even though I wasn't sure they'd be around for another year, I bought an annual premium subscription as a show of support. Apparently, the CEO saw my email because they sent me a very nice email in return offering me some free Pandora swag -- whether or not I actually subscribed. I did, of course, and the swag arrived promptly with a very nice personal note of thanks from the company's CEO.
Just recently (about a month ago), I wrote them again, this time asking for a feature to be added to the new premium player. In the first version of the player, the user had no control over where on the screen the player would pop up when launched form the desktop (or OS start up) -- a small thing, to be sure, but important to one whose desktop is as organized (i.e., cluttered) as is mine. They acknowledged my request promptly with an email that strongly indicated they'd not only actually read my entire missive but that they had understood my request (that's unusual in and of itself). They promised my request was in the feature queue but couldn't tell me when it would appear in the product. A month later the first update to the premium player was released and guess what? When launched from the desktop (or during OS start up) the premium player now appears on the screen in the position the user had last placed it during the previous session. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who requested that feature, but you gotta admit that type of response is pretty hard to find these days.
I don't work for Pandora or any company affiliated with Pandora. I'm just a very satisfied customer.
Re:Spotify (Score:1, Informative)
Not available in Poland, either.
Re:This is a good thing... (Score:4, Informative)
Premium is available in other countries too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spotify_Availability.png [wikipedia.org]
Dark green: Ad-supported and Premium
Light green: Premium
Why ad-supported is not available everywhere is probably just that they havent got ad deals in those countries yet. Spotify is still invite only and beta after all.
Re:Is it just me (Score:3, Informative)
I like the idea of the "day pass" system. For £1, I get access to everything for 24 hours.
That would be excellent for parties. My collection is 95% music I like, but it's not to most peoples' tastes -- and it's quite narrow (e.g. only certain sub-genres of a few genres). I'm happy to hear other stuff though. Typically, someone plugs in an iPod or brings along a few CDs, but it'd be much easier and more flexible if everything could stay on the computer.
Unfortunately, you need an account to buy a "day pass".
Re:spotify poor security (Score:3, Informative)
Do they have any website, representation or payment processing ?
I personally like http://www.jamendo.com/ [jamendo.com]