Locals in the lovely fishing village of Inverness CA  ( I shot half a video there) are up in arms wondering just what Pandora founder Tim Westergren is doing with an old Russian Monastery.  Google Street View here.

As The San Jose Mercury News reports.

Judging from the many letters of opposition that have been sent to county planners, most residents are aghast at the size of the 8,297-square-foot project, which would have 14 bathrooms and up to 17 “functional” bedrooms, according to critics, and would be up to four times larger than the median-sized house in this community of remodeled summer homes, weekend cottages, rustic cabins and modest single-family dwellings.

Westergren says his plans call for nine bedrooms total, but the Inverness Association, an 84-year-old organization of property owners and preservationists, concludes that the second unit “functions as a six-bedroom, two bath housing unit with detached two-car garage” and the septic systems have been sized to service 11 bedrooms in the main residence and six bedrooms in the second unit. (read more)

Some are speculating that rather than a house he intends to open a boutique hotel. 

We have have another suggestion:

  Westergren can use the property to house the songwriters he has made homeless by his relentless war on songwriters and performers.

https://thetrichordist.com/2013/06/24/my-song-got-played-on-pandora-1-million-times-and-all-i-got-was-16-89-less-than-what-i-make-from-a-single-t-shirt-sale/

https://thetrichordist.com/2014/04/30/no-respect-pandora-stops-paying-aretha-franklin-and-other-artists-royalties-while-ceo-rakes-in-29-million-dollars/

Tim Westergren making 1 million a month in stock sales

http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/the-return-of-irfa-million-a-month-tim-charges-on/

And look at the other Pandora insiders selling stock like crazy!

http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1230276.htm

The music business press has repeatedly criticized artists for not providing a solution for the problems with streaming.  Once you get past the amusing fact that it’s not our job nor are we paid to fix streaming services it does become a useful exercise.  Here is my response. 

I would like to thank the shareholders for appointing me CEO of Spotify. I am honored that you placed such great trust in my ability to navigate us through this difficult time.

I would like to make a few comments on the strategy pursued by my predecessor Daniel Ek.  I do this not to criticize my predecessor but to illustrate how my leadership of this company will vary significantly from his.

1.  Under my predecessor’s leadership Spotify pursued a scorched earth policy towards artists that criticized our company. This has been going on for some time.  In the past Spotify engaged surrogates and proxies to attack artists.  This was at best misguided, but the full throated media attack we orchestrated on Taylor Swift was a strategic blunder.

The reality is that Taylor Swift controls her own catalogue and we have given her every reason to NEVER license her songs to the service EVER AGAIN. Swift accounted for more than 20% of all album sales the last two weeks.  It’s likely that she would have represented a similar amount of streams. Her songs are now on our competitors services but not ours.    Spotify can not afford to repeat this mistake.

After I fire all of Spotify’s astroturf consultants, I intend to issue a full apology to the singer–with no conditions–and hereby renounce all such tactics.

2. My predecessor insisted that all songs be available on the free version of the service.  Indeed this is exactly the issue that led Taylor Swift to leave the service.   I believe that this also was a strategic blunder.

By taking a hardline, Spotify lost a once-in-a-decade opportunity to increase revenue and move free users to the premium service.  I intend to modify this policy to allow premium-only content on the subscription service to move free users towards the subscription service.

Further I intend to transition the free service to a free thirty day trial. I believe that Netflix would have never become so successful by competing with itself with a free version. Nor would it have become successful without offering exclusive premium content.

3.  My predecessor was once CEO of uTorrent the world most popular bitTorrent client [Editor’s note-“someone” repeatedly edits this out of Mr. Ek’s wikepedia page–ahem–hence we’ve had to rely on static screen captures.]  I believe that his immersion in the world of piracy impaired his judgement.

My predecessor failed to understand that piracy is the enemy of Spotify.  Unlicensed sites not only hurt artists but compete with Spotify for users and advertisers.  Instead of seeing this as an existential threat Spotify has repeatedly used the threat of piracy as a “club” to keep rightsholders and artists on it’s free service.

I hereby renounce the use of this tactic and going forward intend to create alliances with rightsholders and artists to attack the scourge of ad-funded piracy.

4.   I must commend my predecessor for recognizing (however belatedly) the strategic threat that YouTube represents to all streaming services.  YouTube the video monopoly is also the biggest streaming service.  And it is free. But this is because YouTube hides behind the fiction that it can not control what it’s users upload and Google’s litigation muscle and shakedown rackets.

Much as my predecessor used the threat of piracy as a club, YouTube uses its users as a sort of “torches and pitchforks” mob to threaten rightsholders and artists (not to mention its highly litigious culture).   I believe that this is an illegal practice and I intend to join with rightsholders to press the US government, the European Commission and any other government who is willing into taking action against YouTube on this issue.  Perhaps if all these governments join together, the Google juggernaut can be stopped.  Spotify should lead the charge.

Thank you and I look forward to a long a productive term as CEO of Spotify.

RELATED :

How to Fix Music Streaming in One Word, “Windows”… two more “Pay Gates”…

BUT SPOTIFY IS PAYING 70% OF GROSS TO ARTISTS, ISN’T THAT FAIR? NO, AND HERE’S WHY…

A few days ago we learned that Taylor Swift had decided to “window”her new album and not release it on Spotify.  We also learned that she had removed her back catalogue albums from the Spotify service.

We learned this because Spotify posted this sad little note in which they  begged her to come back to their service.

This of course became a national news story with the press largely lecturing Taylor Swift on “depriving” her fans of her music; Mansplaining that she was making a bad business decision; And generally being mean and greedy.

Bad Taylor.  Poor Spotify.

And then it all turned out to be total bullshit.  Taylor Swift hadn’t pulled her back catalogue from the streaming services.   The albums are available on virtually every other subscription service!  A fact that only a single major US news outlet has noted!  According to Music Ally, Swift wanted her music only on the premium (paid) part of these services.  Spotify refused. They demanded Swift put her albums on the free tier.   Spotify not Swift played hardball.   They didn’t get their way.  She left.

Oh that’s a little different isn’t it?

I mean it’s a little like your friend who comes over to sleep on your couch because his girlfriend broke up with him.  So sad.  They seemed so perfect for each other! You feel bad for him. But the next morning you find out he slept with a flight attendant and tried to make her cat smoke crack.

Oh that’s a little different, isn’t it?

Still that hasn’t stopped Spotify from mounting what now resembles a cyberbully attack on Swift in order to get her to come back to Spotify.  Instead of privately negotiating,  Spotify decided to go public and mount a full throated PR campaign that even features Elevation Partners Managing Director and U2 lead singer Bono  weighing in. Add to that the absolutely unfiltered vitriol that Spotify is allowing in the comments on it’s company blog and it doesn’t look good.  It looks like cyberbullying.

Or  even a “Swift Boat” attack.

And if Swift’s only public interview since this whole thing exploded is any indication?  It doesn’t look like she’s coming back.  Here is Swift earlier today on Yahoo:

“All I can say is that music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment,” Swift told Yahoo. “And I’m not willing to contribute my life’s work to an experiment that I don’t feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of this music.”

Tough luck guys.

I was asked to provide a 250-300 word comment for the New York Times on the subject of Taylor Swift, Spotify and whether streaming music is the future.  Apparently my thoughts on the subject were a little too “direct” and consequently they won’t be appearing there.  My friends thought they were amusing. Here they are:

Taylor Swift, Streaming and the Future of the Music Business. 

To quote Yogi Berra “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” In 2005 we all thought Myspace was the future.  A music industry without MySpace was inconceivable! You think I’m kidding? Go back and read the articles.

Turns out the biggest music story of the year is actually just a false “swift boat” style attack. And the truth is

Taylor Swift did not pull her back catalogue albums from all streaming services!  She is still available on Beats and other paid subscription services.

With the exception of a few Journalists (notably Stuart Dredge of the Guardian) no one seems to have noticed this very important fact.

Further Dredge is reporting (on MusicAlly.com) that Spotify took the hardline position:

So it’s about whether streaming services are willing to make some albums only available on demand to their paying subscribers, and not to their free users. Spotify is maintaining a hardline policy on this – it won’t take an album unless it’s available to all its users – and that’s the sticking point with Swift, as it has been before with some other artists.

You know there’s not room for all of you to have jobs in Silicon Valley…  Right?…

Besides why would any Silicon Valley company hire the cast off dregs of the record industry?  They have the brightest students from the best universities in the world clamoring to work for them…   Why would they hire someone who thinks that The New York Times of torrenting  (TorrentFreak) is an objective source on piracy?….  You guys really are as dumb as you look.  Hey wait,  aren’t you the guys who got us into this shit anyway? … No,.I don’t know if Deezer is hiring…Yes you probably have to speak french….

Oh sorry.  I didn’t know this thing was on.

If you don’t know by now  The Music Business Organization (Formerly NARM)  just sent it’s members a letter proclaiming that Google has finally begun to demote pirate sites–wait for it— citing a TorrentFreak article!!!!!!  Hahahahahaha!  BTW this “fact” is objectively and demonstrably false.   Next the Music Business Organizaton presented to it’s members some sort of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) scam-er uh “service” to members.   Is MBO run from some call center in the Philippines?  What’s next? Will they be calling telling me my auto repair warranty is almost up?

The Music Business Organization is a clown car.   There are no grownups.  The entire recorded music business is run by morons.

On the bright side none of them will have jobs in 2 years.

Dear Cathy TurrYou may have already read about the latest Google anti-piracy report and their commitment to modify the demotion signal to make it more effective. If not, we encourage you to do so that the link below:http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/10/continued-progress-on-fighting-piracy.html Preliminary results are in and it looks like the recent changes had a meaningful impact.  Many of the pirate sites that consistently appeared at the top of mp3 and download searches are no longer in the top results.  You can read more at http://torrentfreak.com/googles-new-downranking-hits-pirate-sites-hard-141023/ We are optimistic that Google’s changes in the demotion signal will cause persistent infringers to move down in search. However, this will only be meaningful if legitimate results are there to take their place. Now would be a great time to refocus your efforts on SEO so your licensed offerings appear ahead of new and smaller infringing sites who will be working hard to improve their own rankings. Tips for how your music site or service can do better in terms of Search Engine Optimization can be found in the following two infographics released by Music Biz: Search Engine Optimization for Music Websites SEO For Websites Part II If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to a Music Biz staff member. Thanks!

It looks a little better today. We are officially downgrading this from “Sexist Spectacle” to “Widespread Mansplaining.”
 

ItI

Does anyone else find this infuriating?

Three female artistes,  Adele, Beyonce and Taylor Swift have now withheld their music from Streaming services.  We have to assume that this was at least partially a business decision.  As should be all artists right, they have chosen to monetize their music without using the streaming services.

Objectively these three female artists are enormously successful and run profitable businesses.

Yet these money-losing streaming services and their (mostly male) journalist supporters seem to be telling these women they don’t understand business?

It would be funny if it was an Onion article.  It’s not.

RELATED

Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?

Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?

Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.

This is getting funny now.

Journalists are now reporting the “real reason” that Taylor Swift has opted to “window” her albums on Spotify.  That is, her public statements about “free” devaluing all music and hurting all artists are not good enough.  So the (mostly male) journalists have gone on quest for a male “self-interest” kind of truth.  Because after all Men are certainly making the real decisions here.

Business Insider (which is neither) seems to have first reported the “Real reason” that Ms. Swift chose not to put her albums on Spotify.  According to Business Insider it was Ms Swift’s record label “boss” who  pulled Ms Swift’s music from Spotify  (BTW a label she and her family own),  The article cited an unnamed  “industry source familiar with firsthand knowledge of why and how this happened, and who is most responsible.”   The article goes on to explain without attribution that the label “boss” is trying to sell the record label.  Increasing sales (a tacit admission that Spotify decreases sales) and hence the value of the label was cited as “his” motivation.  Business Insider did not explain why Big Machine’s other artists including megastars  Florida Georgia Line are still on Spotify.

You see it can’t possibly be

1) A female artist making  business decisions or….

2) Action altruistically  motivated by Ms. Swift’s previously stated feelings on the exploitative nature of free music.

Nope these dudes have to take the long way around the verifiable facts, and rest their entire story on anonymous sources and rumors.

Now virtually every major publication is repeating Business Insider’s anonymous unsourced claims.

“Real” indeed.

Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?

Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?

Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.

Here’s Taylor Swift a few months back in the Wall Street Journal on music:

Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is. I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.

Very eloquent.  Clearly she intended (as she has in the past) on “windowing” her album.  That is withholding her album from Spotify for a period of time.  Just like TV/Movie industry does with Netflix and Hulu.

So Spotify’s response is to treat her like a teenager and make her a mixtape playlist!!!???

Yikes. It is clearly “Bro-land” over at Spotify.

But that’s not the worst of it. Here are the mostly male music industry beat journalists responding to her decision to not release her new album on Spotify.  The very fact they say she “pulled” it from Spotify is in itself loaded.  It was never on Spotify. They don’t even get this basic fact right.

Look we get the jokes, but it’s doubtful that if a male artist had so clearly stated his feelings in regards to streaming and the value of music those comments would have been left out of the stories. Nor would he have been treated like a teenager.

And below is Joshua Brustein  “Mansplaining” that Taylor Swift is wrong when in fact her strategy makes perfect sense.
1) new album not on Spotify = 1.3 million sales.
2) New albums always generates interest in back catalogue.

Therefore also remove back catalogue album to generate additional sales.

Why isn’t bloomberg interviewing Swift for demonstrating such business savvy and showing the boys how to play the game?

On the other hand Brustein makes no sense whatsoever.

Hey Joshua you write for Bloomberg a money magazine.  This is about the money it’s not a “protest.”   Protest.. why the fuck would you assume she’s protesting?  Cause she’s a woman and emotional? Something like that?  Not thinking rationally? Is that what you are getting at?

And Gawker deserves special mention for being too stupid to notice that Spotify is owned by Billionaires. Oh but they are male!  That’s right men can be “rich as fuck” assholes like the SnapChat guy and that’s cool.  Darn I always forget how this works!

RELATED

Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?

Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?

Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.