Want to use Spotify? You’ll have to use Facebook, too. Spotify has just made it mandatory for users to sign into Facebook before logging on at Spotify.

Spotify’s founder, Daniel Ek, says that the new requirement is simply to make sharing a more seamless process. Ek took to Twitter to explain the changes. Ek said:

“About FB registrations. We want to remove barrier to sign-up and create a more seamless experience. As we think our users are social.”

But after hundreds of Spotify users expressed their anger about the new requirement, Ek seemingly acknowledged the fact that it may not have been the best idea.

Ek later tweeted:

“We’ll try lots of things, and probably screw up from time to time, but we value feedback and will make changes based on it.”

PC World reports that the new requirement only effects new users. If you already have a Spotify account, you do not have to link it to Facebook.

CNET reports that Facebook and Spotify partnered up last week as Facebook launched its new ticker. In the upper right hand corner of Facebook you’ll probably see a lot more music updates from now on.

Do you think Spotify made the right move by making Facebook mandatory? Do you believe Ek when he says that Spotify listens to its customers and will make the necessary changers to make them happy?

Spotify Makes Facebook Mandatory, Angers Users is a post from: The Inquisitr

Users in the U.S. have begun to receive Spotify membership acceptance emails and it looks like the company is targeting users with high Klout scores.

If you’re unfamiliar with Klout the system provides “influence” scores based off a users Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursqaure accounts. The more a user is mentioned, checks-in at various locations and shares information about various topics the higher their Klout score.

Spotify is only offering 100,000 U.S. invites  and according to Klout CEO Joe Fernandez in an interview with VentureBeat:

“We just gave away 15,000 to 20,000 invites to people who have the most authority and the most passion around entertainment, music, technology — the exact people  Spotify wants to reach.”

Klout users are receiving the invites as part of the Klout Perks program which gives top influences dibs on special deals based on their interests and Klout score.

How popular is Spotify’s U.S. launch? They had to stop giving out invitations just hours after they began with more invites going out in the next few days.

Spotify Using Klout Scores To Send Out U.S. First Look Invitations is a post from: The Inquisitr

Spotify- the previously Europe-only music service that yanks have been trying to get into since it launched- has finally hit US shores to much fanfare yesterday.

Reviews and feedback for the site are streaming in from users that often already have loyalties to- and libraries built up on- Grooveshark and Pandora. Spotify offers a ton of adjacent services to enhance the Spotify experience, and there are three pricing tier for US users- free, which allows for computer playback, $4.99 a month, which is ad-free, and $9.99 monthly, which allows for mobile streaming to Android, iPhones and wireless speakers.

The one sticking point for the American market thusfar is invites- many users can’t get into the service. Earlier today, Klout had invites, but the Spotify spots all filled up by early afternoon. Trent Reznor gave some away on Twitter, but those free Spotify invites seem to have been tapped out for the day as well. More invites might be released through Klout tomorrow, though, so if you’re itching to get in, it’s worth checking back. (Or paying the $5-10 for a premium account.)

Have you managed to get a Spotify invite, or tried out the free service yet? How do you feel the service stacks up to its competitors? Check out the video below for a first look at Spotify!

[Video] Spotify First Look and Invites! is a post from: The Inquisitr

Spotify’s chief content officer Ken Parks announced on Wednesday that the UK’s favorite music streaming service will arrive in the U.S. on Thursday, July 14.

When asked about the hurdles leading up to the U.S. launch he said:

We were really adamant about bringing the service to the US, which means a really great, free experience. We wanted to be really careful about the way we did this, and the rights holders felt the same way. It took some time, but we’re absolutely thrilled that all four major labels and a ton of indies are behind us, and we’ll be bringing that Spotify experience to the US tomorrow.

While the exact moment of release is not known Parks did say three pricing plans will be available including a free ad-supported version like the one found on the company’s European system.

When speaking to Engadget about the company’s pricing model which raised concerns for U.S. Record labels he said:

“With each passing day, the model proves itself even more… It’s a great way to engage people and get them to invest in it, and if it weren’t, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Along with the free model users will be able to purchase a $4.99 monthly subscription which removes ads and a $9.99 option which brings music to mobile devices and offers an offline caching feature for Android and iOS based devices along with other mobile and permanent based streaming products.

Spotify Arriving in the U.S. Tomorrow! Multiple Plans Available is a post from: The Inquisitr

European music streaming service Spotify upset users and fans today with an announcement that the number of hours of listening for free users would be halved from 20 to 10.

One of the first comments on Spotify’s post announcing the changes kind of sums up reaction to the obviously unpopular announcement:

Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. That’s me over to Grooveshark/YouTube/piracy. Which is a shame, because Spotify had by far the best features and interface. I’ll miss the sharing and the ease of making playlists, I had things nicely organised. Thanks for destroying a community of music lovers. Goodbye.

No specific reason was offered by Spotify for the unpopular decision- it could be to drive more users to the paid service, or maybe due to music label pressure. Spotify bullet-pointed the changes that would affect users:

• New Spotify users will be able to enjoy our unrivalled free service as it is today for the first 6 months.
• As of May 1st, any user who signed up to the free service on or before November 1st 2010 will be able to play each track for free up to a total of 5 times. Users who signed up after the beginning of November will see these changes applied 6 months after the time they set up their Spotify account.
• Additionally, total listening time for free users will be limited to 10 hours per month after the first 6 months. That’s equivalent to around 200 tracks or 20 albums.

If you’re a Spotify Free or Open user, do you plan to continue using the service with all the restrictions? Is it worth the hassle of porting all your music preferences over manually for ten measly hours of listening a month?

Spotify halves monthly free listening time is a post from: The Inquisitr

With our recent announcement that Spotify would soon be coming to the United States we’re happy to announce that the streaming music service has reached one million paying subscribers.

When compared against the company’s 7 million overall user mark that number shows that 15 percent of subscribers are willing to pay for ads free service, a rather larger user base percentage considering that the company’s freemium content is on par with other U.S. providers including Pandora and GrooveShark.

Currently the company is working to secure a deal with Universal which would help secure Spotify a place in the U.S. with agreements already believed to be in place with other powerhouses including EMI and Sony who have both failed to comment on the company’s business dealings at this time.

The announcement that one million subscribers have signed up for premium service should also help Spotify as they negotiate terms with other U.S. record companies who feared they could not deliver a high enough base of paying users to make the program profitable both for Spotify and for the record labels.

Also helping Spotify are recently released numbers which show that the company is currently receiving double the number of paying customers compared to freemium users.

At this time it’s still unclear when Spotify plans to arrive in the United States.

Spotify Milestone: One Million Subscribers Now Paying For Service is a post from: The Inquisitr

In 2009 European music service Spotify lost $26.7 million, while 2010 numbers have not yet been revealed, it looks like the company may be poising themselves to try their luck in the U.S. as they attempt to bring their music streaming service stateside.

The New York Post is reporting that two music-industry sources believe the company is “very close” to a deal with Sony Music and at least one other major label for releasing their technology in North America.

If a deal is in the works, both company’s are remaining mum on the details, refusing to comment on the state of their negotiations.

The biggest issue Spotify has ran into thus far is the lack of consideration for their “freemium model” which has forced labels to ask for high cash advances for the rights to their music catalogs, high numbers that Spotify refuses to pay.

If you are unfamiliar with Spotify, they offer a freemium service which provides unlimited free music to listeners with ads attached to their music, while paying customers receive ad-free spots. The issue at the center of the debate is whether customers in the U.S. would be willing to pay for music or stick with free unlimited songs option with ads attached.

In any case, we will wait with baited breath to see if anything manages to come from this service in the states.

Spotify Looking For North American Release [Report] is a post from: The Inquisitr

The deal expands Spotify’s potential even more. At first customers in Sweden will benefit from the music streaming, but that will probably hopefully change very soon.

From the official announcement:

Telia will start selling Spotify Premium service to their mobile and broadband customers and we hope to work with them on some amazing new initiatives in the near future. Telia is Sweden’s largest ISP and mobile carrier and great match for us, this is a big step towards being able to offer Swedish homes the very best in digital entertainment services.

Spotify is currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain.

Spotify signs deal with Telia is a post from: The Inquisitr

Name any trade group that claims to represent songwriters and/or musicians and they well all tell you how they are all about making sure that the musicians are getting their fair share of money earned by their music. It’s a nice fallacy which I am sure helps record executives and trade group thugs sleep easy at night  but the truth of the matter is that money collected on their behalf very rarely makes it to them.

Lately a lot of noise has been made of a music service called Spotify and how it will let people listen to music for free as long as they don’t mind advertising mixed it; or they could pay for the service and not have to put up with the ads. The publicity around the service was that this was a legitimate that would make sure that the artist got their fair share unlike the thieves running sites like Pirate Bay.

The thing is this isn’t the case, or at least as far as Swedish artist and composer Magnus Uggla it isn’t. When he first came across Spotify he thought is was great, a free service that offers just about everything and because of the involvement of all the music labels – including his own, Sony BMG, there was a feeling that finally artists would start seeing reasonable payments for their music.

Experience has proved otherwise as Magnus says that his first earnings statement from Spotify made it quite apparent that a Busker (street musician) could earn more in one day than what Spotify and his label wanted to pay him for six months.

… Uggla was as surprised as most people when he learned last week that the major labels, including Sony, all have a stake in Spotify. A mere 30,000 kroner ($4,000) investment bought the company 5.8% of the service now valued at around 1.8 billion kroner ($251m).

Referring to the valuation, Uggla questions how this company can do so well – and comes to the conclusion that it’s at the artist’s expense. He says that Sony Music, after “suing the shit out of The Pirate Bay” is acting just like them by not paying the artists.

“I would rather be raped by Pirate Bay than by Hasse Breitholtz and Sony Music and will remove all of my songs from Spotify pending an honest service,” he says.

Source: TorrentFreak :: I’d Rather Be Raped By Pirate Bay Than Go With Spotify

The Internet might be a hard place for musicians to earn a living but at some point it has to be better than signing everything over to record companies who do nothing more than pimp out musicians and then pocket most of the money.

The farce of musicians actually getting paid is a post from: The Inquisitr

Where are your lawsuits now, music industry?

Piracy was down by roughly a third in the UK in 2008, but streaming was way up in the same period. Savvy UK teenagers are using sites like Pandora, YouTube, Grooveshark and Spotify to stream content and music to their computers in lieu of filesharing. One former pirate and current streamer told the Guardian:

“I didn’t even realise it was illegal for a long time, until I heard that the government were trying to stop it. That did put me off, but one of the big reasons I stopped doing it was because I would get viruses, more pop ups on my computer. While I was at uni I started listening to streamed music using MySpace. Bands would be friends with other bands and it was a great way of discovering new music. I don’t really feel the need to own all that music, I know it’s always there.”

The shift seems largely inspired not by some moral obligation to maintain music industry profits, but rather, sheer convenience. As has been shouted at the music industry time and again, the business models that will flourish alongside technology are those that offer convenience and aren’t ripping consumers off left, right and center.

It seems that the music industry can accept that the entire revenue generating model has changed and change with it, using tangible merchandise like tour tickets, memorabilia and the like to boost profits alongside ad-supported streaming. Or they can continue to behave like litigious buggy-whip factories and keep trying to circumvent technologies that bring fans to music most efficiently. Which do you think it will be?

Piracy down, streaming up in the UK is a post from: The Inquisitr