Music Industry Monday (because I just cant wait till Tuesday for this one): As you probably have heard today, Taylor Swift(s savvy business organization) has decided to pull her latest album and all her back catalog from Spotify. A lot of folks are congratulating her, and while I think its good to fight for higher streaming royalties, I dont believe that their decision was at all about making a heroic statement about the value of art. It was about MONEY, pure and simple. If we know anything at all about T. Swifts organization, its that they are shrewd businessfolk. This Forbes article nails it. Obviously, Swift is in a very unique position to pull a move like this and make it work for her. She is a ubiquitous household name and needs no extra exposure. Her new song Shake It Off is getting so much radio play that pulling it up on Spotify would practically be redundant. She has that wonderful mix of fans - still many kids, families, and country music fans - that are some of the only remaining demographics that still buy CDs. She has plenty of guaranteed demand, so she can control the supply as she likes. The most compelling reason on this list is that Swifts label, Big Machine, is about to be sold, and are looking for short-term profit by end-of-year, as opposed to sustainability. They also note that Swifts org owns no stake in Spotify (I would go further and assume that they definitely hold investment elsewhere then - Beats, Apple, Amazon - since nobody in their right mind is ignoring streaming right now). For those of us who are not household names, and are not selling our record labels for big bucks soon, or arent potentially investing in competitors - for those of us who are building our careers still and need all the exposure and presence we can get, staying on Spotify is a no-brainer. For Swift, perhaps the opposite is true right now, and thats cool. Im just not going to pretend its a protest, or a philosophy, or about anything other than the bottom line. You go girl! Get your capitalism on! Im just gonna shake it off...
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 23:33:51 +0000
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