Spotify has always been very vigilant about the company's core principle that all artists, regardless of popularity, must make their music available to both free and paid users. This vigilance cost the company Taylor Swift last year, who pulled all her songs from the streaming service over disagreements about Spotify's policy.
A year into the issue, however, Spotify is slowly caving in to the request of musicians and artists. Spotify has finally agreed that it would consider allowing some artists to start releasing albums only to the service's paid users, according to the Wall Street Journal.
This does not mean to say that free users would not have access to an artist's new songs. It simply means that paid users get to listen to them earlier.
Such a strategy, called windowing, has already been a common practice with movie and television releases, reported Time.
Free users need not worry though, since the windowing strategy is just a test rather than a permanent change in policy. Despite somewhat caving in to the music industry's demands, Spotify's global head of communications and public policy, Jonathan Prince, believes the company's original model is still what makes Spotify the successful service that it has become.
"We are 100 percent committed to our model because we believe that a free, ad-supported tier combined with a more robust premium tier is the best way to deliver music to fans, create value for artists and songwriters, and grow the industry," he said, according to the Guardian.
In line with the new system, Adele seems to be the first artist to utilize the windowing strategy, as her new album, "25," is currently unavailable on any streaming service, free or paid. She does, however, have the option of reserving the release of the album for paying subscribers of Spotify, as well as releasing it on subscription-only services such as Apple Music and Google Play Music.
