Spotify have made an announcement that has the potential to change the way the entire music industry distributes music, especially the next generation of artists.
Now allowing artists to manage their own music uploads on the platform, Spotify has caused major disruption for a few people in the industry, though joy to even more. The service will come via Spotify For Artists, and completely for free.
Currently only in the stage of invite-only beta, Spotify has so far welcomed a few hundred American artists to try the service, while their Spotify For Artists currently has over 200,000 verified artists who will no doubt gain access in due time.
Independant artists currently rely on third party services such as CD Baby and TuneCore to host their work on Spotify, and while they also offer Beatport, iTunes and YouTube among their offerings, these services will likely be affected by the new Spotify announcement.
Another major player who might be upset at the news is SoundCloud, with SoundCloud and Spotify being in slightly different markets due to Spotify always being gated by a distributor, opening the gate to independent artists will bring the two closer together than ever before.
Spotify said “Just like releasing through any other partner, you’ll get paid when fans stream your music on Spotify. Your recording royalties will hit your bank account automatically each month, and you’ll see a clear report of how much your streams are earning right next to the other insights you already get from Spotify for Artists. Uploading is free to all artists, and Spotify doesn’t charge you any fees or commissions no matter how frequently you release music.”