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I have to say that since I've been paying for music, I've always had the one complaint: Why does the industry insist that each music portal have a fragmented, i

I have to say that since I've been paying for music, I've always had the one complaint: Why does the industry insist that each music portal have a fragmented, incomplete catalogue. In a world where everyone pays for music, I suppose this makes sense, since to have access to the complete catalog one would need to subscribe to each and every service out there. The one exception was grooveshark, which had everything. I think google may have succeeded where grooveshark failed, in strong-arming the industry to provide access to their complete catalogue. Originally I subscribed to youtube-red because I couldn't stand adverts popping up during video lectures. I suppose they succeeded in frustrating me. But $10/month is the correct price point for an unrestricted music catalogue, and now ad-free streaming of other media is just a bonus.

psergeant 9y ago
My one complaint: I have to use the various companies’ shitty players to access the music. Spotify’s discovery is just about making me not hate their “value-add” too much, but the consumer is going to win big when startups can one-stop license all the music for $10/m and start doing interesting things with it
WillPostForFood 9y ago
The music industry isn’t a monolith, there is an array of companies and rights holders that control over a century’s worth of recorded music. The only single party that could step in and simplify the legal morass is the government.
- sf2001 9y ago
  Yes, the music industry is extraordinarily complex. There are many layers of legal complexity that apply differently (consent decrees) across the industry. There are archaic rules about the source of the music. And generally, the fact that distribution of original music is effectively a two-sided market business model (media) means music isn't worth as much until it is popular, so one method has been to give it away for free to get to that point (think demo CDs). Spotify deserves a lot of credit for handling the mainstream content to an international user base. The business rules of serving which version of a song (two users who play the same song can be served different content because of licensing rules), accounting for the royalties to different publishers, etc... are hard enough to figure out.
- 0xfaded 9y ago
  This doesn't prevent the industry from getting together to make their product more accessible. It didn't stop them from banding together to make it less accessible (RIAA/MPAA).
  - tinus_hn 9y ago
    The government has also already shown they can force licensing as they did for radio.

psergeant 9y ago

My one complaint: I have to use the various companies’ shitty players to access the music. Spotify’s discovery is just about making me not hate their “value-add” too much, but the consumer is going to win big when startups can one-stop license all the music for $10/m and start doing interesting things with it

WillPostForFood 9y ago

The music industry isn’t a monolith, there is an array of companies and rights holders that control over a century’s worth of recorded music. The only single party that could step in and simplify the legal morass is the government.

sf2001 9y ago
Yes, the music industry is extraordinarily complex. There are many layers of legal complexity that apply differently (consent decrees) across the industry. There are archaic rules about the source of the music. And generally, the fact that distribution of original music is effectively a two-sided market business model (media) means music isn't worth as much until it is popular, so one method has been to give it away for free to get to that point (think demo CDs). Spotify deserves a lot of credit for handling the mainstream content to an international user base. The business rules of serving which version of a song (two users who play the same song can be served different content because of licensing rules), accounting for the royalties to different publishers, etc... are hard enough to figure out.
0xfaded 9y ago
This doesn't prevent the industry from getting together to make their product more accessible. It didn't stop them from banding together to make it less accessible (RIAA/MPAA).
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  The government has also already shown they can force licensing as they did for radio.