Spotify and Napster

Spotify is a company that launch in 2008. they made spotify because they didn't that music should be on your company so they thought of the idea and made it. months later they had spotify. Spotify is a Swedish DRM-based music streaming service offering streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal. Launched in October 2008 by Swedish startup Spotify AB, the service had approximately ten million users as of 15 September 2010; about 2.5 million of whom were paying members. The service is, as of November 2011, available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Facebook compatibility allows Spotify users to share music with Facebook friends through the use of the service’s inbox. Spotify users are able to send tracks or playlists to friends who, in return, are able to access this music through their Spotify account. This use of social media to increase popularity has put Spotify in the spotlight with recent reports suggesting that the Swedish firm is in advanced talks with the Russian-based venture capital group Digital Sky Technologies with possibility of a $100 million investment that could value the firm at somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion.

Spotify has also managed to have a positive affect on the “black market” of music downloads. Having the option to stream millions of tracks supported by an occasional ad, or free of ads for a small monthly fee, Spotify appears to be serious competitor to music piracy. Through quarterly surveys done in various European countries researchers have polled the music consumption habits of thousands of people, and in their most recent report they find that music piracy continues to drop. Since 2009, the numbers of people who download music illegally has decreased by more than 25 percent in sweden, and over the last year alone it dropped by 9 percent all throughout Europe. This downward trend in music piracy is most likely due to Spotifys gains in popularity throughout Europe. If the service can continue to gain momentum the online piracy may decrease in the U.S as well giving much relief to dozens of record companies.