Posts Tagged ‘spotify’

U2‘s manager Paul McGuinness has said online music streaming services ‘should be encouraged’, but also admitted artists are yet to be convinced by the medium as they do not foresee any financial benefits.

It is always hard to believe that the Internet is less than 20 years in the popular domain. Throughout its short life it has been continually adopting a new and unpredictable guise and no one really needs to be told how it has revolutionized the music industry. Judging by the incalculability of this paradigm-shifting phenomenon, it would take an ignorant, and perhaps arrogant, point of view to predict where it will be going next.

But who better than Prince to rain on our parade and go so far as to declare it “dead”? The infamously aloof artist claimed that “the Internet’s completely over” and sees no point in handing over his precious compositions to the likes of iTunes, or any music-download site for that matter.  The artist formerly known as a symbol analogized the downfall of the world-wide-web with MTV: “At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

The British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) has criticised the deals made by record labels to allow their music to be streamed on streaming services such as Spotify, saying they generate only a small amount of revenue for artists.