CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS Pulls Its Repertoire From SPOTIFY

Century Media and its associated labels InsideOutMusic, Superballmusic and People Like You have decided to pull their repertoire from streaming music service Spotify in an attempt "to protect the interests of their artists."

The U.S. version of Spotify, which gives its users access to all the songs in its cloud to organize into playlists and listen to as they please, has reportedly attracted 1.4 million registered users so far in spite of its current invite-only status. Of those users, roughly 175,000 are said to be "paying users." In Europe, where Spotify has been available in seven countries since its launch in 2008, the company currently has around 1.6 million paying users, according to published reports.

According to the an infographic on the Information Is Beautiful web site, which visualizes the different monetization methods available to artists and how profitable they are, if you are a solo musician, at $0.00029 per play on Spotify, you will have to receive 4,053,110 plays per month to earn the U.S. minimum wage of $1,160.

In a statement released earlier today, Century Media explained its position by saying, "While everyone at the label group believes in the ever-changing possibilities of new technology and new ways of bringing music to the fans, Century Media is also of the opinion that Spotify in its present shape and form isn't the way forward. The income streams to the artists are affected massively and therefore that accelerates the downward spiral, which eventually will lead to artists not being able to record music the way it should be recorded. Ultimately, in some cases, it will completely kill a lot of smaller bands that are already struggling to make ends meet. At the same time, Century Media also believes that Spotify is a great tool to discover new music and is in the process of reintroducing their bands to Spotify by way of putting up samplers of the artists. This way, fans can still discover the great music released by the label.

"Physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active. Artists are depending on their income from selling music and it is our job to support them to do so. Since the artists need to sell their music to continue their creativity, Spotify is a problem for them. This is about survival, nothing less, and it is time that fans and consumers realize that for artists it is essential to sell music to keep their heads above water.

"Obviously, it is ultimately up to the music fan and consumer how they access their music, whether it is buying, streaming or stealing. There needs to be awareness, though, that how you will consume your music has direct consequences for the artists, who we are all trying to support."