After their deals with Artists and Managers, Spotify strikes again in launching a new beta feature, that will allow independent artists to upload tracks to the service directly and without any label or digital aggregator.
Artists who aren’t signed to a major label have to pay a third-party distributor like DistroKid, CD Baby, TuneCore, Record Union or EmuBands. Discreetly tested by Noname, Michael Brun, VIAA and Hot Shade, the new service of ‘Spotify For Artists’ will be applied (by invitation) on “a few hundred U.S.-based independent artists”, extended in the coming weeks or months, where artists will be able to sign up for a mailing list to receive their invitations.
Unlike Soundcloud, where the free offer limits accounts to 3 hours of materials, this function is totally free – at the moment – and allows indie artists to bypass traditional third-party fees and collecting royalties from Spotify. A post on Spotify’s blog explains:
In charge of their own copyrights, indie artists have control over their music through a full creating space, in advance of the release date: they can upload their music, add an artwork, choose a release day, or also preview how it will look after publishing.
“We’ve focused on making the tool easy, flexible, and transparent” Spotify For Artists’ senior product lead, creator marketplace Kene Anoliefo said to Billboard. “There will be no limit or constraint on how often [artists] can upload. We think that can open up a really interesting creative space for artists to begin sharing their music to their fans on Spotify”.
Spotify continue to impact the music industry, in creating a “two-sided marketplace”, but aggregators, major labels and, indeed, SoundCloud, are not so delighted with these news.
Source: Billboard