Spotify's Daniel Ek: The Most Important Man In Music forbes.com
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| Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon |
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Spotify’s Daniel Ek created a free, Facebook-enabled platform that could save the recording industry from piracy–and iTunes.The real threat to Ek, ultimately, isn’t his product—it’s the industry Spotify purports to save. Spotify will only be as successful as its music library, and some bands—notably his two favorites, the Beatles and Led Zeppelin—aren’t playing ball. Recently Coldplay and the Black Keys denied Spotify access to their new albums. Scooter Braun, agent to Justin Bieber, understands the thinking but tells me: “They should then tell radio not to play records for free and call YouTube and say don’t allow my music to stream on videos for free.”
More ominously, the initial music licenses expire in two years, and Ek must deliver enough cash flow to prevent the labels from demanding higher royalties—or pulling out all together. (So far, Spotify has paid them about $150 million.) Right now the labels have the leverage, and Ek has wisely brought the big players into the tent—as part of the licensing deals, Spotify granted equity stakes to the four largest music labels (Warner, Universal, EMI and Sony) and Merlin. Industry sources put their collective cut at nearly 20%.