'Music Industry Entering Golden Age', Says Spotify CEO Daniek EK
Friday, 03 February 2012
Written by Elliott Batte
Danuil Ek, founder and owner of Spotify, believes that the music industry is flourishing and is entering a new ‘golden age’.
The claims come after Spotify reached 3million paying subscribers and Ek thinks that if his company as well as many other new social or media based networks can keep going strong, then music will enter a ‘golden age’, where more and more people will buy and listen to music.
“We look at the sharing of music as really, really important for our business,” Ek confessed to Grammy.com. “We've found that the more social our users are, the faster they grow their own music library. And the faster they grow their music library, the faster they become paying customers. Personally speaking, I am more bullish on the future of the music industry than ever before, and I think we're kind of entering a golden age in music.”
He continued on to say: “I'd also like to address people who think they'll gain sales by not being on Spotify. There's not a shred of data to suggest that. In fact, all the information available points to streaming services helping to drive sales. Album unit sales were up in the U.S. in 2011, the year Spotify launched, for the first time since 2004. More than a dozen albums which debuted at number one have been available on Spotify at launch.”
“Spotify users are helping pay a ton of money back to the industry. You're talking 10 million active users, 2.5 million subscribers — most of them paying $120 (£76) a year, which is double the amount of your average iTunes user. At Spotify, we really want you to democratically win as a musician. The royalty cheques we're paying out now — of course we're happy that there's progress being made, but it's still only in its early days, and it will keep growing.”
What do you think of Spotify and Ek’s comments? Let us know in the comment section below.
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