Taylor Swift's "1989” album’s notable absence on Spotify was due to a ‘windowing' strategy. But now she's even pulled her entire back music catalogue from the popular streaming service. Some say it's reportedly due to a dispute regarding streaming revenue dividends which are a lot lower than download revenues. This ‘windowing' strategy which has certainly paid dividends for now has sold more than 1.287 million copies in the week ending Nov 2. BUT given that streaming is predicted to be ubiquitous 5 years from now Taylor Swift may need to shake off her streaming inhibitions sooner rather than later. Remember artists had the same fears about iTunes back in 2003 and this week Spotify revenue in Europe has overtaken income from iTunes downloads for the very first time.
But the question is, can all artists afford to exclude Spotify to have a 'windowing strategy?So I guess the question here becomes... will Spotify change their policy as more and more musicians with the same power pull as Swift will probably follow in her footsteps?
Kobalt who refer to themselves as a technology company with a rather strong music DNA, made headlines this week when they announced that Spotify had overtaken iTunes in Europe in terms of royalties generated for its songwriters. This coming just days after Taylor Swift removed her music from the streaming giants, Kobalts CEO Willard Ahdritz spoke at a Web Summit in Dublin. Kobalt who represents song-writers such as Stevie Nicks and Paul McCartney show that its writers earned 13% more from Spotify streams in Europe during the first quarter than they did from iTunes downloads. The problem, Ahdritz sees, is that the pipes are broken in the music industry and that's why money is not reaching artists specifically even though millions of dollars are being paid out by Spotify and YouTube. The big vision for his company and the message he has for others is to create a technology that is able to provide streamlined solutions for tracking and reporting publishing royalties which his company has proudly done and makes his 'customers' very happy.
This week has seen the 24 year old pop-star sell more than 1.287 million copies of her '1989' Album (according to Nielsen SoundScan) and has become the first album to go platinum in 2014. What this means is that Swift's album has been the biggest selling album in a single week since Eminem's The Eminem Show sold 1.322 million copies in 2002.
Sales of “1989” were split almost evenly between physical copies and digital downloads. Swift’s publicity campaign for the album began in August when she released “Shake It Off” as a single, and sent her fans via iTunes to pre-order the album.
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Follow @TunedGlobalSwift is still No. 1 on the iTunes album chart today, and will be a thorn in the side of a number of key releases this month all aiming for No.1. These figures alone have sent shockwaves through the music industry defying the prevailing trends in music.
Many artists are not in Taylor Swift's fortunate position of power in the music industry and cannot afford to pull their music from such revenue raising services like Spotify in order to make a point.
It's true that album sales are the story of this moment, and windowing has most probably played a major role in those sales. The future of music is streaming, for us and for Taylor Swift and musicians as powerful as Swift will most probably follow suit should Spotify not change their policy for 'free' users and 'paid' users in the future.
What do you think? Will other artists follow Taylor Swift in removing entire music catalogues should Spotify not change there 'windowing' policy? Surely the issue would be resolved should all streaming services were all paid subscription services and not be for free?
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