News - Spotify restricts access to ‘free’ music, piracy to increase?

[jim]

Difference is, with Spotify you get a choice.

There's no option to buy a copy of The Times for a fiver without ads.

[Saracen]

Do you ever read a newspaper? Adverts.

Rarely. And I can skip the adverts.

....

With the radio is it just the bbc you listen too?

Pretty much. Radio 2, classic FM, BBC local radio. Planet Rock too .... but the mute button is my friend.

And for TV, as I've said before, it's VERY rare for me to watch TV live, other than BBC or occasionally other ad-free channels. Nearly all my TV-watching is time-shifted, and I delete the ads from recordings before watching them. It takes a bit of time to de-advert the progs, but :-

1) nowhere near as long as it does to watch them.
2) the ads then don't disrupt the flow of the program by breaking it up, 'cos I've already dumped them.

So, I can record an hour program, spend 5 mins removing the 20 minutes of ads, and spend 45 minutes watching it, thereby regaining 15 minutes per 1 hour program back from the advertising life-force vampires.

[Scott B]

Planet Rock too

- that and Radio 4 for me.

Everyone's got bills to pay, nothing is free, it's just a matter of how you pay for it. The price of piracy is the prospect of getting caught and punished.

[borandi]

And this is why I use GrooveShark.

[TheAnimus]

Pretty much. Radio 2, classic FM, BBC local radio. Planet Rock too .... but the mute button is my friend.

I think this is why I'm confused.

I hate adverts too, don't get me wrong, but I'm happy to pay for a service without them (thou not for one with them, yes Sky, i'm looking at you....).

Radio2, thats what your doing with the license fee. Is £8 pcm so bad by comparison for a streaming anything you ever want service, a custom radio?

And ClassicFM for instance, how do you know when to un-mute, or do you just turn the volume right down?

I guess what I'm saying is whilst its always horses for courses, its a bit odd to say you'd never listen to the add supported spotify, which is essentially just a commercial radio that is customised when you listen to commercial radio, or to pay for an add-less format when you listen to the beeb.

I just don't see how there is any difference between the scenarios. I'm also amazed by how many people pirate/use groveshark rather than pay what amounts to two nice pints in a london pub a month for a zune pass or similar.

[BobF64]

What it boils down to is, you have less money and they have more.

Not necessarily.

Spotify must have costs, if theyre making a loss or just breaking even atm, then I can see why theyre making this change, its sensible, logical and could provide them with the means to improve the service.

If theyre making a healthy profit, then its a bit more like a money grab.

[mikerr]

Looks like I might end up paying spotify (its £4.99 for no ads/unlimited, or £9.99 if you want to use it on your phone or offline)

Having looked more into Grooveshark is just dodgy IMO:

Spotify: Get licencing deals with the record companies

Grooveshark: Let anyone share music illegally and only remove it on a per song basis when asked

[jim]

Yeah, Grooveshark seems to be built on a fairly hilarious legal basis, but it is nonetheless still afloat (somehow).

[Saracen]

I think this is why I'm confused.

....

With me, there's two completely different aspects. One is ads, the other, subscription.

With music, I either want a transient service where I'll take what's transmitted, and if I don't like it, turn off or over. If I actually want he music, I buy the CD. I'm not paying a subscription for a download service, and indeed for music, am not paying a subscription at all. I don't want music that badly, by virtue of already having the vast bulk of what I want.

Partly, this is an age thing - most of what I hear of "modern" music, I simply don't like. That's probably partially because I don't spend that much time listening to it. I do, however, have a large CD collection, which is about 50/50 between classical and, put loosely, "pop". But by "pop", I mean everything from AC/DC to Paloma Faith, taking in Camel, Horslips, Renaissance, Andreas Vollenweider, Tomita and a load of others on the way.

As for listening to ClassicFM, you get long chunks of classical music without interruptions. I mute during ads, because I'd rather miss the start of something than put up with ads. But make no mistake, I'd do without ClassicFM, or Planet Rock, before I'll put up with the adverts. And if the ads get too irritating, I go to another station, or to CD.

As for Radio 2 and the licence fee, it's not at all the same thing. The licence fee is not a subscription, it's a mandatory requirement. Either I give up al TV, including BBC channels with no adverts or I buy a licence.

We're going a bit far afield here, and I don't want to get into the BBC licence fee debate again. My point is that the spotify service offers nothing I'm interested in, and I would not be prepared to either pay a subscription or listen to adds. To make it even clearer, I'm not interested in spotify if they offer me an unlimited premium account, free for life. I'm just not interested in downloading music to my computer. Period.

As I said in my first post

For me, the Spotify announcement has zero impact, because it's not a service I've ever used, and I can't imagine I ever would.

[Benihana]

Last.fm or the £4.99 Spotify for me, I use it as a radio at work and play about 5 hours a day! Missing some of my fav bands though :S

[[GSV]Trig]

Personally I had never thought about paying for Spotify.
However, I now have an Android phone and since my change to GiffGaff I'm already saving more than what Spotify will cost me so I might actually pay for spotify and then get to use it on my phone as well..
We'll see..