SPOTIFY IPO TROUBLES ARTIST COALITION

The Content Creators Coalition takes issue with Spotify’s direct listing, stating “the IPO chooses a short-term payday over long-term progress and will only weaken the streaming ecosystem.”

The artist-run non-profit advocacy group C3 released this statement on Spotify’s plan to go public on the New York Stock Exchange:

“Spotify’s founders had an opportunity to pioneer new models and partner with artists on ways to make the music ecosystem work for everyone – services, artists, and fans. Instead, they cashed in – enriching company owners and deep pocketed investors and doing nothing for working artists who continue to chase pennies online. This IPO chooses a short-term payday over long-term progress and will only weaken the streaming ecosystem, burdening the art of music with Wall Street’s bottom line first mentality and erecting new barriers between creators and their fans.

“Spotify’s algorithms and curated playlists have already failed artists and songwriters, making haphazard and emotionally stunted connections between supposedly ‘related’ acts and pushing costly advertising tools as the best way to reach new fans. The result is the worst of all worlds—at one end artists and independent rights holders have no meaningful input into how their work is presented and promoted on the service and at the other end, they are paid grossly substandard wages for the airplay they do receive. And it will get worse as Spotify’s managers focus more and more on shareholders and less and less on music.

“Artists stand ready to embrace streaming models that work for all. But we will always reject corporate greed and ‘too big to fail’ models that squeeze the soul out of our work and distances us from our fans.”