The Spotify freemium music streaming service, set to launch by the end of the year in the states, announced a deal on Thursday to develop services for the Swedish ISP and telecom company Telia that would offer the premium version of the service to its subscribers on their computers, cellphones, and television sets, in return for an optional additional fee on their monthly ISP/cellphone bill.
"Its official," tweeted Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek. "Our first major ISP & carrier deal is with Telia in Sweden. This will be big!"
The deal marks the first time Spotify has signed a deal to put its service on televisions -- an important development, if the service is to break through to the living room. It also paints a fuller picture of what the service could look like when it launches in the US.
As with Spotify's other ISP deal (a just-expired contract with Bredbandsblaget), this service is optional for subscribers, meaning that they can decide whether or not to tack a Spotify premium fee onto their ISP bill.
"It won't cover all Telia subscribers," Spotify spokesman Andres Sehr told Wired.com. "Spotify will be bundled into different mobile, internet packages, etc."
ESPN took a different approach in the states: charging ISPs one big licensing fee to cover all of its subscribers, which then gets passed on to consumers whether they watch it or not. The record labels' Choruss plan, led by Warner Music Group, would ostensibly offer the same approach, by charging ISPs a blanket license, which would then pass the fee on to music fans and non-fans alike.
At the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit earlier this week in Washington, D.C., where Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek gave a talk, hallway chatter centered around licensing ISPs the way the music industry does radio, and Spotify was often mentioned as a services that could potentially make that happen. And it has already proven capable of inking deals at the ISP/telco level.
If ISPs in the United States offer the same, opt-in model that Telia will offer in Sweden, consumers will likely relish that freedom. However, it remains to be seen whether labels in the United States will be willing to abandon their dream of licensing 100 percent of an ISP's subscribers in a single stroke.
Spotify content director Niklas Ivarsson (updated) appeared in a joint presentation with the British rights collection society PRS for Music, in which he revealed new stats. For instance, Spotify had 2.7 million users in the UK in July, with more males than females using the service.
Ivarsson also revealed that service only includes four million tracks in the UK -- about half of what you can find in iTunes. If Spotify hopes to ink ISP deals for its stateside rollout, it will probably have to become more comprehensive, and that could mean signing deals with smaller labels and independent bands (so far, it has been willing only to sign deals with large labels and indie aggregators like The Orchard, Merlin and CD Baby.
See Also:
- Apple Approves Spotify iPhone App; US Rollout Still On Hold
- U.S. Exclusive: Hands-On with the Spotify iPhone App
- Spotify Approved: Does Apple Care More About Apps Than Music
- Spotify Set to Take America by Storm
- Spotify Becomes Platform, Makes U.S. Music Fans Even More Jealous
- Ka-shing! Spotify Investors Include Chinese Billionaire
- Biggest Record Label Earns More from Spotify than iTunes in Sweden
