Adele Backs Music Streaming Services

[RoadWarrior]

Adele’s manager claimed that services like Spotify are the future of music. However, he admitted that the company may need to change its policy and stop making all albums available to both its free and paid subscribers.

Such claim was made in respond to Taylor Swift’s back catalogue being removed from Spotify a few days ago. He also pointed out that when the copyright owners decide to remove music from Spotify, it still remains available on YouTube, where the whole Taylor Swift album is streamed, partly ad-supported (so there is revenue) and partly not.

As you can see, the rights holders treat various streaming services differently: YouTube as a marketing tool, but Spotify as lost sales. Adele’s manager elaborated on his theory that Spotify could relent in its policy of having albums available to all its users. May be it would be a wise move to allow some music to be restricted to its paying customers, at least for some period of time, i.e. paying subscribers may get access to new albums earlier than free listeners.

Back in 2012, Spotify refused to allow Adele’s last album to be made available in this way. Her music was added to the service later in 2012. Nevertheless, her manager remains positive about the prospects for streaming overall, and Spotify in particular.

A successful or current artist is supposed to see the following income: 60% to come from tickets, 20% from tour merchandise, 15% from publishing, 3% from ancillary and only 2% from record sales. So, now the artists have to get to grips with the biggest change in the music industry, which is its current switch from sales to streaming.

Adele’s manager predicts that streaming will be ubiquitous in 5 years, with the music business going into a streaming model now. Regardless of whether the artists want to be in it or not, in a few years streaming will be everywhere.