Century Media have decided to remove Borknagar and all other bands under the label from Spotify. The press-release on their own website goes like this;
Century Media and its associated labels “InsideOutMusic”, “Superballmusic” and“People Like You” have decided to pull their repertoire from Spotify in an attempt to protect the interests of their artists.
While everyone at the label group believes in the ever changing possibilities of new technology and new ways of bringing music to the fans, Century Media is also of the opinion that Spotify in its present shape and form isn’t the way forward. The income streams to the artists are affected massively and therefore that accelerates the downward spiral, which eventually will lead to artists not being able to record music the way it should be recorded. Ultimately, in some cases, it will completely kill a lot of smaller bands that are already struggling to make ends meet.
At the same time Century Media also believes that Spotify is a great tool to discover new music and is in the process of reintroducing their bands to Spotify by way of putting up samplers of the artists. This way, fans can still discover the great music released by the label.
Physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active. Artists are depending on their income from selling music and it is our job to support them to do so. Since the artists need to sell their music to continue their creativity, Spotify is a problem for them. This is about survival, nothing less and it is time that fans and consumers realize that for artists it is essential to sell music to keep their heads above water.
Obviously it is ultimately up to the music fan and consumer, how they access their music, whether it is buying, streaming or stealing. There needs to be awareness though, that how you will consume your music has direct consequences for the artists, who we are all trying to support.
I have decided to jump backwards into the debate myself, you can read my take on this in the article called; century-media-removes-all-their-bands-from-spotify on the ArtisanNorway.com
—————Jens
My bet is that those who used to listen to Borknagar on Spotify is now going to pirate the music and put it in their Spotify library. The people who use Spotify on a daily basis are not music collectors like some of us, they don’t give a shit, they just want an easy way to listen to music. Trust me, almost all my friends are like that.
Or use another streamer, like Last.fm
————-Jens
Everyone I know in the USA listens to stuff streaming off of Youtube already. I’m glad Century Media did this. These things are like a disease…
Personally, I approve of this move. We all know the future of music is digital. And at least Spotify was attempting to pay artists. But even a cursory glance at Spotify’s business model made it abundantly clear that what they were paying wasn’t close to enough, and couldn’t be anything else because they were mostly giving everything away for free.