Her album then sold 3.5 million copies in a single week, breaking a 15-year record and providing evidence for some that streaming services hurt music sales.
Advertisement
According to a report by Bloomberg, the streaming service will be testing the viability of such a move, marking a massive shift in the company’s stated commitment to free streaming. It wants to investigate how such a “windowed” approach might affect usage and subscription sign-ups but hasn’t decided which artist will first get to withhold music from the free service, this person added, and the company isn’t ready to announce a permanent policy change. The company has always maintained that all of its users would have access to the same catalog of music.
Last year, Ms. Swift’s camp initially asked Spotify to make her album “1989” available only to its paying subscribers in the US and to free users overseas, where she has fewer fans. She claims Spotify’s current policies doesn’t value her music in the proper way. Spotify’s ad-free subscriptions start at $9.99 a month, the free tier is supported by advertising.
Spotify has released a cool new feature for its most dedicated users, which allows you to see which music you just couldn’t live without throughout 2015. Apple Music, for example, gives new customers a 90-day free trial, but afterward offers them no free, ad-supported option.
Advertisement
Coldplay recently skipped a same-day Spotify release for latest album “A Head Full of Dreams” when it bowed December 4. The album is now arriving on Friday, a week after the CD’s release, on both the free and paid tiers. “In that context, we explored a wide range of promotional options for the new Coldplay album and ultimately decided, together with management, that Coldplay and its fans would best be served with the full album on both free and premium this Friday”.
