Spotify

Spotify has been accused of trying to “radically reduce songwriter payments” in the US by reclassifying its subscriptions as music and audiobook bundles. The change allows it to pay lower US compulsory licence rates, but the National Music Publishers Association says it “will not stand” for this…

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Spotify plans to provide remixing tools within its app that will allow users to speed up, mash up and otherwise tweak tracks in a legitimate and licensed way. There’s a logic to that plan, but it also raises some copyright questions…

The price of a Spotify subscription is set to increase again in some markets this month, although users will reportedly be able to avoid the price rise if they opt out of audiobook access. It might all be a move by Spotify to create a separate revenue stream to fund its audiobook ambitions.…

‘Fake artists’ have become a talking point again after a Swedish newspaper highlighted how one musician is scoring billions of streams by recording tracks targeted at Spotify’s mood music playlists under 656 different names.…

Spotify has published loads more stats as part of an update to its Loud & Clear website. Although the stats are interesting, this site is partly about countering criticism of Spotify, and it’s interesting to see what criticism is clearly being dealt with among the facts and figures…