Spotify has announced a deal with Swedish telco Telia, which involves the latter selling the Spotify Premium service to its mobile and broadband customers – with an interactive TV version on the roadmap too. The deal reportedly includes a branded SpotifyPhone, made by INQ – the handset maker owned by telecoms mogul Li Ka-Shing, who recently invested in Spotify.Meanwhile, co-founder Daniel Ek has written a blog post reflecting on the company’s first year since launching, promising to be more open and transparent about the company’s ambitions. He reveals that Spotify has “hundreds of thousands” of paying users, and that it its advertising revenues have “now passed the millions of Euros per month mark”.However, he also calls for the music industry to abandon its current per-play fees licensing model: “The industry needs to think outside of the box and realise that the new business model in music is a mix between ad-supported music, downloads, subscriptions, merchandising and ticketing where the user comes first and where the key to monetisation comes from portability and packaging access rights.”
Spotify signs Telia deal and calls for licensing change
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October 9th, 2009 by Music Ally
