I guess a lot could be said these days about the profitability and future prospects of Spotify, but their music catalogue in the early days beta was at least partially sourced from Piratebay and other torrent sites. [1]

Considering the deals they later made with the record companies, it does indeed seem like asking for forgiveness rather than permission could be the best strategy, as was noted by some of the comments in this thread.

[1]: https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...