Photo: Press
Placebo frontman Brian Molko has spoken out in the ongoing row between Atoms For Peace and Spotify - agreeing with Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich and claiming that the service are 'just interested in making money at the expense of others'.
Earlier this week, Spotify listeners found that they could no longer stream Thom Yorke's solo album The Eraser, Amok by Atoms for Peace or Ultraísta's self titled debut. Band member and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich said: "New artists get paid fuck all with this model. If we don't try and make it fair for new music producers and artists then the art will suffer."
Thom Yorke then posted on Twitter: “New artists you discover on Spotify will not get paid. Meanwhile shareholders will shortly begin rolling in it."
Speaking to Music Week, Molko has now said: “The jury’s still out on Spotify. I don’t see any problem with putting your singles up there because they are on the radio and people can 'audio hijack' them - but I don’t see the point in negotiating really good digital rights for your record company for them to just put [all your music on streaming services].
“The amount you might get seems kind of negligible to me at the moment,. It’s the same thing with Facebook – it’s presented as something that is meant to be good for society, but I don’t think the motivation behind the people that run Facebook is to bring people together – it’s to create wealth for themselves."
He continued: “Similarly with Spotify - I don’t think it’s got anything to do with fighting piracy or providing a service that’s good for the music industry and for new bands. They are just interested in making money at the expense of others. It comes from a place of just pure profit-making on their part.”
Thom Yorke has slammed the way that Spotify pays new artists
Following Yorke and Godrich's claims, Gigwise spoke to Spotify who responded: "Our goal is to grow a service which people love, ultimately want to pay for, and which will provide the financial support to the music industry necessary to invest in new talent and music," a spokesman said. "We want to help artists connect with their fans, find new audiences, grow their fan base and make a living from the music we all love."
They continued: "Right now we're still in the early stages of a long-term project that's already having a hugely positive effect on artists and new music. We've already paid US$500M to rightsholders so far and by the end of 2013 this number will reach US$1bn. Much of this money is being invested in nurturing new talent and producing great new music.
"We're 100% committed to making Spotify the most artist-friendly music service possible, and are constantly talking to artists and managers about how Spotify can help build their careers."
Below: Placebo live in Brixton
