Musicians will have to pay to use full Spotify for Artists service

Musicians and promoters will have to pay to use the full Spotify for Artists service in future, revealed Daniel Elk, Spotify’s CEO.

Elk outlined his vision for the company in the firm’s earnings call last week, describing the ‘freemium’ model for artists and promoters.

Artists and managers will receive a limited suite of tools for free, but will have to pay for the full range of services. Data is “very unlikely” to be a tool that costs money, according to Elk.

Elk said: “Our strategy in our marketplace side of the business is the same as we have on the rest of Spotify, which is it’s a freemium business, meaning there will be a certain amount of products which artists and labels can get for free, and there are others which we will charge money for.” 

This comes at a time that Spotify has quarter of a million creators using the platform, and allowing uploading music directly to the platform without a label or distributor.  Unsurprisingly this is to the annoyance of major labels.