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Spotify Technology SA said on Monday it would cut its workforce by 6% amid a broader leadership shuffle, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company said it estimates 35-45 million euros ($38-$49 million USD) of charges related to letting these employees go, and that its chief content & advertising business officer Dawn Ostroff will also leave the company. Ostroff will act as a senior adviser helping to facilitate the reorganization, which will include Alex Norström, currently freemium business officer, and Gustav Söderström, currently chief research & development officer, becoming co-presidents of Spotify.
Spotify is the latest big tech company to announce a wave of layoffs, following a similar announcement by Google parent company Alphabet, which said last week that it would let go of some 12,000 workers.
Companies, including Spotify and Alphabet, staffed up during the pandemic and are now looking to cut costs amid slowing global economic growth.
Spotify employed 9,800 employees, according to recent filings. The company will announce its most recent quarterly earnings on January 31.
Several music companies let go of staff or cut investment budgets in the second half of 2022 in preparation for a possible economic downturn. Spotify said it would cut hiring by 25%, SoundCloud laid off 20% of its staff and BMI said it was cutting just under 10% of its total workforce, through a combination of letting 30 people go and leaving certain jobs unfilled.
Spotify is set to have layoffs as soon as this week as the company moves forward with plans to reduce operational expenses, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The layoffs are expected to be more broad than a previous round of cuts in October, which impacted staff members working on canceled shows from in-house podcast studios Gimlet and Parcast.
A representative for Spotify declined to comment.
Spotify executives have previously signaled plans to reduce headcount-related expenses, with CEO Daniel Ek telling staff last June that the company would reduce its hiring growth by 25 percent and “be a bit more prudent with the absolute level of new hires over the next few quarters.” Paul Vogel, the company’s chief financial officer, also pointed to “increasing uncertainty regarding the global economy” at Spotify’s investor day in June as a reason for “evaluating [Spotify’s] headcount growth in the near term.”
Though the exact number of layoffs — first reported by Bloomberg — is not immediately clear, other tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Meta have each announced major rounds of layoffs impacting thousands of employees in recent months. The most recent layoff announcement came from Google parent company Alphabet, which is set to reduce its staff by 6 percent, which represents around 12,000 employees.
As of the end of the third quarter, Spotify employed around 9,800 people. The audio company brought in €3.04 billion in revenue and added 195 million paid subscribers during the third quarter. At the time, Ek said the economic downturn had not had a “material impact” on the company’s business but that Spotify would be “more selective” with its “overall spending.”
Spotify will report its fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 31 before the market opens.
This article originally appeared in THR.com.
For the first time in three years, Spotify will host a pre-Grammys performance showcase for the year’s best new artist nominees.
Spotify’s 2023 Grammys party will take place on the evening of Thursday, Feb. 2, in Los Angeles, Billboard can exclusively reveal. All 10 of this year’s best new artist nominees — Anitta, Omar Apollo, Domi & JD Beck, Muni Long, Samara Joy, Latto, Måneskin, Tobe Nwigwe, Molly Tuttle and Wet Leg — will be in attendance, with multiple performances and surprise guests planned.
Spotify launched its best new artist Grammy soiree in 2017, and last held its nighttime showcase in 2020, when artists like Lizzo, Lil Nas X and eventual winner Billie Eilish performed intimate sets. After taking off 2021 due to the pandemic, Spotify hosted a poolside brunch last April when the Grammys were held in Las Vegas, with best new artist nominees in attendance but no performances.
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“Spotify stands for new artist discovery and we take great pride in championing the next generation of superstars early on. For each of the past six years, our Best New Artist campaign has celebrated the category’s nominees in increasingly impactful ways,” says Jeremy Erlich, Global Head of Music at Spotify. “These nominations mark a pivotal moment in their careers, and we want to help them further capitalize on that momentum with our marketing muscle and global reach, culminating in our annual BNA Party in Los Angeles. This is the largest class of performing nominees that we’ll have in one night and it’s bound to be our biggest and best event yet.”
In 2021, Spotify filled the void of its best new artist party by launching a Spotify Singles series featuring that year’s nominees in the week leading up to the Grammys, which included Phoebe Bridgers reworking her song “Kyoto” with Jackson Browne and Chika covering Billie Eilish’s “My Future.” That series continued last year in the lead-up to the 2022 Grammys, and Spotify confirms that a new batch of Spotify Singles featuring the best new artist nominees is coming soon.
The 2023 Grammy Awards will be presented Sunday, Feb. 5, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Click here to see the full list of nominations, including best new artist.
She can buy her own flowers and set her own records! Miley Cyrus broke the Spotify record for the most-streamed song in a single week on Thursday (Jan. 19) thanks to her latest hit “Flowers.”
After the streamer shared the news on its social channels, the superstar took to her own Instagram Stories and Twitter to react. “Thank you so much @Spotify and my amazing fans,” she wrote, using a red heart emoji to communicate her gratitude for all the support the song has received.
So far, the lead single off the upcoming Endless Summer Vacation has bowed at No. 1 on the ARIA Singles Chart in Australia and No. 2 on the U.K. Official Singles Chart. The song will make its official mark on the Billboard Hot 100 when the coming week’s charts are unveiled on Monday (Jan. 23), though Billboard readers already voted it as their favorite new release last week.
“Flowers” has also received a resounding stamp of approval from none other than Gloria Gaynor. “I’m in Nashville working on new music and just heard, ‘Flowers,’ for the first time @MileyCyrus,” the disco icon tweeted. “Your new song carries the torch of empowerment and encourages everyone to find strength in themselves to persevere and thrive. Well done Miley!”
In addition to flipping Bruno Mars’ 2014 single “If I Was Your Man” on its head, part of the song’s appeal comes from the litany of potential Easter eggs pointing to its narrative being about Cyrus’ relationship with ex-husband Liam Hemsworth, from her choosing to release the track on his 33rd birthday to a reference to the Woolsey Fire that burned down the couple’s Malibu home back in 2019 tucked into the lyrics.
Check out Spotify’s announcement of Miley’s new record and read her sweet reaction:
More than 1 billion music streams in France — or between 1% and 3% of all streams in the country — were detected to be fraudulent in 2021, according to a report released this week by a French government organization that analyzed data from Spotify, Deezer and Qobuz.
If the report’s number were to hold true for the worldwide music market — which the IFPI valued at $16.9 billion in 2021 — that would mean approximately $170 million to $510 million of streaming royalties are being misallocated globally. This is roughly in line with a 2019 estimate of $300 million lost to streaming fraud cited during Indie Week.
The Centre national de la musique (CNM), an organization created by the French government in 2020 that operates under the Ministry of Culture, found that fraud is widespread in France, the fifth-largest music market, to a sobering degree: “Irregularities are spotted” on both major-label and independent releases, national and international albums, old catalog and fresh new singles alike, the CMN says in its 56-page study. “The methods used by fraudsters are constantly evolving and improving,” it notes, “and fraud seems to be getting easier and easier to commit.”
The genres which had the highest percentage of fraudulent streams detected in the CNM’s report were background music (4.8% on Deezer) and non-musical titles (3.5%). While the raw number of fraudulent streams detected was highest in rap — the most popular genre in France — that represented just 0.4% of overall plays in the genre on Spotify and 0.7% on Deezer.
CNM’s report appears to be the first country-wide investigation of streaming fraud. “We’re happy with the effort by the CNM and the French government as a whole to look into this and take it seriously,” says Morgan Hayduk, founder and co-CEO of Beatdapp, a Canadian company that provides fraud detection software to streaming services, labels, and distributors. “This issue deserves the weight and attention that they gave to it.”
CNM’s report comes with several caveats, however. The organization’s data does not include information from Apple Music, YouTube and Amazon, who declined to share information about fraud on their platforms. According to a recent estimate from MIDiA Research, those three services account for slightly more than 35% of global streaming subscriptions. (MIDiA did not share country-level figures.)
In addition, Hayduk says, the report only looks at country-level data. This means it does not account for VPN usage that allows fraudsters to mask their country of origin.
Bad actors committing streaming fraud often “rotate through multiple countries redirecting traffic constantly,” says Andrew Batey, Beatdapp’s other co-CEO. “It’s not uncommon when we find fraud cases to see 15 devices spreading plays across 30 countries.” To catch that, he says, “you need a global view.”
Fraudulent streams, once defined by former Napster executive Angel Gambino as “anything which isn’t fans listening to music they love,” have become a major topic of music industry concern in Germany, France and Brazil. That’s because undetected fraudulent streams can impact market share calculations and divert money from honest artists.
The countries have taken different approaches to combat this fraud. The IFPI led a legal effort to shut down German websites that offered streams for cash starting in 2020. The organization made the case that manipulating play counts allows artists to create a false impression of popularity, ultimately misleading consumers and violating Germany’s Unfair Competition act.
In Brazil, law enforcement worked in conjunction with Pro-Música, IFPI’s Brazilian affiliate, to shut down 84 stream-boosting sites in the country in 2021. Prosecutors there argued that sites that offered fraudulent streams were violating Brazil’s Consumer Defense Code and treated the activity as a criminal act.
Brazil’s coordinated effort — dubbed Operation Anti-Doping — determined that the fraudulent streams were actually being generated outside of Brazil, illustrating the limitations of a single-country approach to fraud reduction. “No company in Brazil has the technology to make these fake streams,” Paulo Rosa, Pro-Música’s president, told Billboard in 2021. “This technology comes from websites hosted in Russia.”
The U.S. industry has historically appeared less bothered by streaming fraud — or at least less willing to acknowledge its existence publicly, with executives and streaming services reluctant to discuss the subject. This may be starting to shift, however. At a Music Biz panel in May, SoundCloud vp of strategy Michael Pelczynski noted that the current streaming ecosystem is rife with “very prevalent fraud and abuse,” and that this activity has “cultural ramifications.” When undetected fraudulent streams “start influencing the way we measure the success of music, we are literally supporting inauthenticity,” Pelczynski said.
The CNM appeared heartened by the fact that, since the summer of 2021, it has seen “the growing mobilization of platforms, distributors and producers” worried about fraud, resulting in the creation of “dedicated teams” and the outlay of increased resources to battle “manipulation.”
But there remain several key challenges when attempting to tackle fraud. The lack of transparency from some streaming platforms, and the inability to push toward assembling a comprehensive global data set, means that the scale of the problem is still unknown.
What’s more, as the CNM points out, it’s nearly impossible to punish those engaged in fraud because they are rarely identified. The penultimate section of the report lays out potential legal remedies that could be used to fight fake streams in France — if authorities were able to prove that bad actors violated laws related to illegal hacking or unfair business practices. They include fines of up to 300,000 euros ($324,000) and prison sentences of up to five years for perpetrators.
The CNM pledged to release a follow-up report in 2024.
Graham Rothenberg was named partner at entertainment marketing agency The Syndicate, with his title elevated to president & general manager. Rothenberg, who has been with the company for 18 years, has served as general manager since 2018. He will now lead the agency alongside partners Jon Landman, Tracey Zucatti and Chris Elles. During his tenure, he has been a key force in campaigns including the Interpol “Big Shot City” exhibit and Panic! At The Disco’s crop circle tour announcement.
“I’ve known Graham for over 20 years and have watched him grow from College Radio Music Director (WICB) to College Radio Promoter at The Syndicate to becoming our General Manager and now being elevated as our President and a Partner of the company,” said managing partner/CEO Jon Landman in a statement. “Graham’s leadership and creativity have been instrumental in advancing our organization to new levels while staying true to the grassroots connection to music and artists on which we founded the company. As we enter our 25th year of The Syndicate, we can’t wait for what’s on the horizon.”
Rothenberg added, “It’s an immense honor to be named Partner at The Syndicate, a company I’ve been privileged to grow with over the past 18 years. Starting as a college radio promoter back in 2004, I’ve been able to watch The Syndicate evolve into the unique agency it’s become today. I’m extremely excited to work even more closely with Jon, Tracey, and Chris while continuing to lead our incredible staff in moving culture forward and helping our clients achieve their most creative goals.”
Jackie Augustus joined Spotify‘s artist partnerships team to lead country and folk artist partnerships for the streamer. Augustus, who was named to Billboard‘s Country Power Players list in 2022, most recently served as strategic partner manager of music at Instagram.
Chris Schuler was named vp of promotion at Capitol Records Nashville where he will lead the promotion team previously headed up by Bobby Young. He most recently served as vp of promotion at Arista Nashville. Schuler can be reached at chris.schuler@umusic.com.
Sherry Lansing was designated chairman of the board on Universal Music Group‘s board of directors, effective Jan. 10. Lansing, a retired film studio executive who previously served as CEO at Paramount Pictures and president of production at 20th Century Fox, succeeds Judy Craymer, who retired from the position to focus on her film and theater production projects.
Jitze de Raaff was appointed president of CTM Entertainment, effective Jan. 1. He was previously managing director of CTM Publishing and Music in the Benelux region. De Raaff, also co-shareholder of the company, will now be responsible for all other CTM activities in addition to music. He will additionally play a bigger role in the company’s international expansion alongside CTM CEO André de Raaff. He can be reached at Jitze.deRaaff@ctm.nl.
BMG appointed Stefan Lehmkuhl programmer for Berlin’s historic 1,700-seat Theater des Westens, which the company announced it had leased for two years last September. Lemkuhl has curated and produced music events including Melt Festival and Lollapalooza Berlin for two decades. He will be joined by event producer Parker “Pansy” Tilghman.
Randy Reyes was promoted to senior director of rhythmic promotion at Atlantic Records. Reyes has worked in rhythmic and pop mix show promotion at the label for the past nine years.
Tvg hospitality, founded by Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons, named Jayne Davis COO and Katie Millar gm of the Orion Amphitheater. The New York-based Davis arrives from OTG Management where she served as senior vp of operations development, while Millar previously served as manager at Paramount Fine Foods Centre & Living Arts Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
James Ainscough was appointed to the role of CEO at the Royal Albert Hall, where he will lead the execution of the venue’s post-pandemic business plan; he previously worked at the Hall from 2008 to 2017 as director of finance and administration and then as COO. He joins in late spring 2023 from the charity Help Musicians, where he currently serves as CEO. Ainscough replaces Craig Hassall, who stepped down from the CEO role last month. COO Dan Freeman will continue serving as interim CEO until Ainscough officially joins.
Mandy McCormack was named executive vp/marketing & partner strategy for Trisha Yearwood, Inc. In her enhanced role as part of Yearwood’s management team, McCormack will manage brand partnerships, oversee marketing plans, seek out new business ventures and provide strategic consultation in all aspects of the country star’s business. McCormack most recently served as senior vp of radio promotion & marketing/artist strategy at Garth Brooks’ Pearl Records and Team TY (Trisha Yearwood). McCormack can be reached at mandy@trishayearwoodinc.com.
Tristra Newyear Yeager was named chief strategy officer at music/tech PR firm Rock Paper Scissors (RPS), while Travis Feaster was named new business manager at the company. Newyear Yeager, who has been with RPS for 17 years, was previously director of strategy and will now oversee PR and client services and guide strategic planning at the firm. Feaster was most recently national sales manager at Boutique Amps Distribution.
Jayne Hamblin was named manager of management and records at Creative Nation, where she will oversee the day-to-day responsibilities for Creative Nation’s artist clients while serving as a liaison between them and outside partners. Hamblin can be reached at jayne@creativenationmusic.com.
On Thursday (Jan. 12), Spotify released its Hot Country Artists to Watch list, and making this year’s list is Megan Moroney, who just released a music video for her viral hit “Tennessee Orange, which currently ranks at No. 43 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart.
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“I remember when I moved to town, I dreamed of being on the Hot Country Playlist,” Moroney said in a Spotify video. “To be on that playlist now is very cool for me and I’m very grateful.”
“Narcissist” singer-songwriter Avery Anna makes the list too, as does Dylan Marlowe (known for his remake of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” and new song “Goodbye Gets Around”).
ERNEST, who earned a top 20 Billboard Country Airplay hit with “Flower Shops” (featuring Morgan Wallen) and recently launched his own music publishing venture, also makes the list.
“There have been a ton of awesome names on this list and it’s an honor to be one of them,” ERNEST says in the video.
Country-rock group 49 Winchester’s high-octane sound puts the group on the list, while they are joined by “Don’t Come Lookin’” hitmaker Jackson Dean, whose music was recently featured on the hit series Yellowstone.
Also landing on the Spotify Artists to Watch list this year is the group Restless Road, known for “Take Me Home” (a collab with Kane Brown inspired by the John Denver classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads”), as well as “Growing Old With You.”
Others making the list include Ella Langley (“Country Boy’s Dream Girl”), Josh Ross (“First Taste of Gone”) and Tanner Adell (“Honky Tonk Heartbreak”).
See more from this year’s honorees below:
A prominent ’90s hip-hop duo is suing Universal Music Group for withholding royalties tied to what they’re alleging is a “sweetheart” deal the label reached with Spotify in the late 2000s.
Filed Wednesday (Jan. 4) in U.S. district court in New York by attorneys representing Andres Titus (Dres) and William McLean (Mista Lawnge), members of the hip-hop duo Black Sheep, the lawsuit claims UMG owes its artists approximately $750 million in royalties deriving from the company’s stock in Spotify. Under a licensing deal they claim UMG and the streaming giant reached in 2008, the label agreed to receive lower royalty payments in exchange for equity in the then-nascent streaming company. But Titus and McLean say the label breached their contract with Black Sheep and other artists by withholding what they argue is the artists’ rightful 50% share of UMG’s now-lucrative Spotify stock — and otherwise failing to compensate them for the lower royalty payments they received as a result of the alleged deal.
“Rather than distribute to artists their 50% of Spotify stock or pay artists their true and accurate royalty payments, for years Universal shortchanged artists and deprived Plaintiffs and Class Members of the full royalty payments they were owed under Universal’s contract,” the complaint reads. Titus and McLean further claim that Universal deliberately omitted from royalty statements both the company’s ownership of Spotify stock and the lower streaming royalty payments that resulted from its alleged deal with the streaming service.
“Over time, the value of the Spotify stock that Universal improperly withheld from artists has ballooned to hundreds of millions of dollars,” the complaint continues. “These and the other wrongful conduct detailed herein resulted in the Company’s breaching its contracts with artists, violating the covenant of good faith and fair dealing that is implicit in those contracts, and unjust enrichment at the expense of its artists.”
In a statement sent to Billboard, a UMG spokesperson denied Titus and McLean’s claims: “Universal Music Group’s innovative leadership has led to the renewed growth of the music ecosystem to the benefit of recording artists, songwriters and creators around the world. UMG has a well-established track record of fighting for artist compensation and the claim that it would take equity at the expense of artist compensation is patently false and absurd. Given that this is pending litigation, we cannot comment on all aspects of the complaint.”
According to the lawsuit, Titus and McLean signed a record contract with Polygram in July 1990 (later amended and revised in July 1991) as Black Sheep — the duo best known for the hit rap single “The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)” from their RIAA Gold-selling 1991 album A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. Black Sheep’s record contract was then assumed by UMG after the company merged with Polygram in 1998.
UMG acquired just over 5% of Spotify shares “in or around the summer of 2008” in a licensing agreement in exchange for lower royalty payments, the complaint adds, citing a 2018 Music Business Worldwide report. It claims that Universal acquired additional Spotify shares through its 2011 purchase of EMI, which had acquired shares in the streaming company around the same time, the suit alleges. It then cites UMG’s own prospectus, released in September 2021, revealing that the label held roughly 6.49 million, or roughly 3.35%, of Spotify shares as of June 30, 2021, valued at 1.475 billion euros ($1.79 billion).
It’s worth noting that UMG’s stake in Spotify has become significantly less lucrative since June 30, 2021, however. As of Wednesday’s closing price, UMG’s stake in Spotify is now worth just $560 million — the result of Spotify shares falling 70.5% over the past 18 months. Notably, Spotify isn’t the only streaming service UMG has equity in; according to the same prospectus, it also owns 0.73% of Tencent Music Entertainment shares, a stake that’s currently worth $112.5 million.
Included as an exhibit in the complaint is Black Sheep’s amended July 1991 contract with Polygram, which states that royalties paid to Titus and McLean “‘shall be a sum equal to fifty percent (50%) of [Universal’s] net receipts with respect to’ the ‘exploitation’ for any ‘use or exploitation’ of ‘Master Recordings’ created by Plaintiffs.” The plaintiffs claim they and other UMG artists are thereby entitled to 50% of the labels’ Spotify stock but that UMG has failed to pay it. This demand stems from a couple of broad assumptions: that all artists in the class signed similar contracts and that they were similarly not compensated with a portion of UMG’s stock holdings in Spotify.
The plaintiffs are asking for compensatory damages, punitive damages and an injunction “or other appropriate equitable relief” requiring UMG “to refrain from engaging in deceptive practices” as outlined in the lawsuit.
UMG isn’t alone among the major labels in acquiring Spotify stock — both Sony and Warner Music, as well as indie Merlin, also have or had stakes in the company. In May 2018, Sony sold half of its 5.707% stake in Spotify for an estimated $761 million, while that same month Merlin announced it sold its entire stake for an unknown amount and had shared the proceeds with its members. Warner followed suit in August 2018 when it sold its entire 2% stake in the streamer for $504 million, with the company announcing that around $126 million of the proceeds would be paid out to the company’s artists.
UMG has yet to sell any of its stock in the streaming giant.
-Additional reporting by Glenn Peoples
You can read the full lawsuit below.
Spotify has promoted longtime employee John Stein to head of North America, editorial, the company announced on Tuesday (Dec. 20). He reports directly to Sulinna Ong, global head of editorial at the streaming service.
Stein joined Spotify in 2013 after the streamer acquired his previous company, the playlisting firm Tunigo. Prior to his promotion, he worked as lead of music culture and editorial, overseeing strategy and curation for Spotify’s U.S. editorial playlists and becoming a strong voice on the company’s editorial team and the music team as a whole.
In 2018, Stein co-created Spotify’s successful genre-less playlist Pollen, which today boasts more than 1.3 million likes on the platform. Due to Pollen’s phenomenal success, the streaming service began leaning into the concept of playlist-as-brand and eventually introduced other similar playlists, including the pop-leaning Lorem (more than 969,000 likes) and the Nordic region-focused Oyster (more than 102,000 likes).
With his promotion, Stein has three new direct reports on his team. They include Rachel Whitney, head of Nashville, editorial; Antonio Vasquez, head of U.S. Latin, editorial; and Ronny Ho, head of dance and electronic development, editorial. The trio joins Stein’s existing team, which includes Ehis Osifo, editor, editorial partnerships; Jess Huddleston, editorial lead, Canada with her direct reports Marc Matar, junior editor, Canada and Karla Moy, editor, Canada; Talia Kraines, senior editor, United States with her direct reports Fredrik Fencke, editor and Lulu Largent, junior editor; and Elizabeth Szabo, senior editor, along with her direct report William Nellis, junior editor, North America.
Just two weeks after Spotify CEO Daniel Ek ripped Apple for “bullying” app owners in a Nov. 30 tweet thread, the executive doubled down on his comments during an interview that aired Thursday (Dec. 15) on the streamer’s For The Record podcast. During the appearance, Ek said Apple’s controls over payments and data on its app store create an anticompetitive environment that is “harmful for the economy and consumers.”
“They continue to give themselves unfair advantages really at every turn and setting themselves up as both the referee and player in this game,” stifling competition and hurting competitors and consumers, Ek said.
A vocal critic of the iPhone maker over the years, Ek has ramped up calls against Apple’s policies in recent months. The U.S. Senate has just weeks left in its current term to pass a bill that would rein in the control Apple and Alphabet Inc.’s Google exert over their apps marketplaces.
Introduced last year by Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal along with Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, the Open App Markets Act would block app store owners from requiring app developers to use its payments platform. The bill would also ban app stores from pushing their own products over competitors’ products and permit app developers to communicate more freely with customers and open the door to apps being downloadable from more platforms.
Speaking on the podcast, Senator Blackburn said the bill is gaining support daily.
“The reason we need this is to open up the marketplace to allow more competition, to allow developers to be able to take their product directly to the consumer,” which would lower some costs for developers at a time of high inflation in the U.S., Blackburn said.
App stores run by Apple and Google have traditionally taken a cut of in-app purchases. Prior to 2016, Spotify charged users 30% more if customers upgraded to a premium subscription inside Apple’s App Store to offset Apple’s 30% fee. To save on fees, Spotify has not allowed in-app purchasing on its Apple app since 2016.
Ek threw the weight of his company behind Blackburn’s bill on the podcast, saying that Spotify believes there needs to be regulation in this space to make clear that developers or companies can interact with consumers.
“There is an enormous concentration of power where one company here [is] dictating the rules for how millions of companies should be able to conduct business,” Ek said on the podcast.
This is not the first time Ek has taken on Apple’s App Store in the regulatory arena. In 2019, Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission against Apple, alleging that rules governing its App Store “purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience — essentially acting as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers.”
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.