Spotify

[R94N]

Not sure whether this is the right place to post this, but it is about technology.

Is the company that runs Spotify still in debt? I didn't think enough people has a paid subscription so they were loosing money.

Also, how can I request songs to be added to the library so I can listen to them?

 

[danielcox]

I think so but I'm sure they're slowly coming out of debt - lots of ads and whatnot.
Also if you want a song in there that they don't have then you add it yourself, if you don't have a song it's because it's so obscure that it isn't worth adding (unlikely, I've heard some pretty obscure stuff) or it's because of licensing restrictions.

 

[R94N]

That's the trouble with things like that - I want the independent artists to get paid (I don't listen to much of the mainstream stuff that makes millions of pounds) but at the same time I often don't have enough money spare to buy all the music I want. I don't really like pirate sites much.

 

[danielcox]

Most artists don't make a lot of money from recording contracts. Say they get a million pounds - most of that will go on marketing, publishing and recording costs, some of it will go towards various wages for people connected to the artist and the artist will get barely any. This is especially true if they're smaller niche artists.
Go to a concert or buy some of their merchandise - they'll be happy someone is downloading just because of the exposure.

Note: My own opinion is not backed up by facts.

 

[R94N]

Yes, I don't like the pirate/illegal torrent sites because I don't think the artists deserve to have their work essentially stolen from them. Now, I don't want to start an argument over whether torrent sites are good/bad but torrent sites can be good publicity for artists even though they loose a lot of money from the illegal downloads. Personally I don't like piracy of any media like that and I prefer to buy my music legally, even if I do miss out on a lot of music at least the artists get compensated for their work.