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 (2010 -09-15) about 1,000,000 of which were paying members.
The service is, as of July 2011, only available in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States.
Music can be browsed by artist, album, record label, genre or playlist as well as by direct searches. On desktop clients a link allows the listener to purchase selected material via partner retailers.
Users can register either for free accounts supported by visual and radio-style advertising or for paid subscriptions without ads and with a range of extra features such as higher bitrate streams and offline access to music. A paid "Premium" subscription is required to use Spotify on mobile devices.
criticism: The service has come under fire for failing to compensate independent artists fairly. Helienne Lindvall of The Guardian reported that "indie labels... as opposed to the majors and Merlin members, receive no advance, receive no minimum per stream and only get a 50% share of ad revenue on a pro-rata basis." Swedish musician Magnus Uggla wanted to pull his music from the service, stating that after six months he'd only earned "what a mediocre busker could earn in a day". Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported in 2009 that record label Junior Racing had only earned NOK 19 ($3.00 USD) after their artists had been streamed over 55,100 times.
But Its a long wait for the Americans and lets see how they can amuse their selves by the service...
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