Spotify’s Daniel Ek speaks out

Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek has published an impassioned defence of his platform’s business model, in the wake of Taylor Swift pulling her catalogue from their service and repeated criticism from some quarters.

In the piece published on DigitalMusicNews.com, Ek confronts various criticisms head on and dispels commonly-touted myths about Spotify – and reminds readers of its background and the recorded music industry landscape of the time.

“Piracy doesn’t pay artists a penny – nothing, zilch, zero” says Ek. “Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists.”

“Here’s the thing I really want artists to understand: Our interests are totally aligned with yours. Even if you don’t believe that’s our goal, look at our business. Our whole business is to maximize the value of your music. We don’t use music to drive sales of hardware or software. We use music to get people to pay for music.

“The more we grow, the more we’ll pay you. We’re going to be transparent about it all the way through. And we have a big team of your fellow artists here because if you think we haven’t done well enough, we want to know, and we want to do better. None of that is ever going to change.”

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