Spotify has responded to criticism from Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich that the music streaming service is “bad for new music,” maintaining that they seek to make Spotify “the most artist-friendly music service possible.” In a statement to Music Week, Spotify said their goal is “to grow a service which people love, ultimately want to pay for, and which will provide the financial support to the music industry necessary to invest in new talent and music,” and offered numbers they say show much they’ve paid for rights.
“We’ve already paid $500 million to rightsholders so far and by the end of 2013 this number will reach $1 billion,” Spotify said. “Much of this money is being invested in nurturing new talent and producing great new music.”
They continued, “We’re 100 percent committed to making Spotify the most artist-friendly music service possible, and are constantly talking to artists and managers about how Spotify can help build their careers.”
After removing their recent Atoms for Peace album Amok** from Spotify, Godrich went after the service on Twitter over the weekend. “The music industry is being taken over by the back door and if we don’t try and make it fair for new music producers and artists then the art will suffer,” Godrich wrote. “These are all the same old industry bods trying to get a stranglehold on the delivery system.”
Godrich said it’s deeply difficult for new bands and new music to generate substantial revenue on Spotify. “If people had been listening to Spotify instead of buying records in 1973, I doubt very much if [Pink Floyd**’s] Dark Side [of the Moon] would have been made,” he said. “It would just be too expensive.”
