SPOTIFY'S BILLION-DOLLAR SPIN

You may have spotted the item in Wednesday's New York Post with the headline “Spotify to spend $1B on Renewal Deal With Universal Music.” The Post’s Claire Atkinson attributes the figure to “an internal email” containing expected payments over the next two years based on “Spotify projections of its growth rate and Universal’s market share.”

The streamery’s “projections” leave a lot of room to maneuver, so take that number with about a billion grains of salt.

It’s unclear exactly whose email this was, but it’s noteworthy that Atkinson describes it as “the latest salvo in a simmering war between the two companies and their differing views on the economic viability of free music streaming.” This “salvo” certainly reads like Spotify’s attempt to blunt the impact of UMG chief Lucian Grainge’s very pointed critique of the “freemium” streaming model—not to mention the pending onslaught of Apple marketing for its new Beats-driven service.

Now that Sony ruler Doug Morris has voiced his own blunt dismissal of free streaming, one imagines Spotify spinning will only intensify—not to mention spin from the 800-lb. gorilla of free streaming, Google’s YouTube.