I was involved in building a DRM-free MP3 download service called Datz many years back. The bulk of music is owned by 4 record labels, and they all wanted vast fees just for access to the catalogue, never mind subscription revenue.

IIRC when spotify started it was only available in sweden and was classed as a pseudo-radio which allowed them to get a blanket deal with Swedish Performing Rights Society (STIM) which governs radio/public music license payments for sweden. It also was a case of the record labels being more willing to try this out in a smaller market before committing globally.

I remember using it 2007-2008-ish and it being pretty magical at the time.

Worked on a product like spotify many years ago, just to chime in that jonorourke is right. I think we had 4 major deals with the labels (Universal, Sony, WB and one I can't remember), and then just a few deals with some smaller labels which to be honest, weren't really important for the userbase/revenue (sure you may want Beethoven's 5th played by the Czech Symphony on the London Hall, but 99.9999% of the users just wanted to listen to the stuff from the major 4)

I suspect it's because music (at least in the US) has a "mandatory licensing regime" for music, which is why it's possible for broadcast radio stations to play a wide variety of music. I don't think there's a corresponding legal framework for videorecordings, so each video broadcaster/streamer needs to negotiate independently with each rightsholder.

Spotify regularly remove songs from playlists I have made after they lose the rights.

And it would be fine if they were at least upfront about it, but I feel like I'm going insane when I suddenly just can't find a song on a playlist.

Not sure how old it is as I don't often use Spotify, but some of my songs are disabled in my playlists, isn't is related to license issues?

This is one area where music has got it right, imo.

The value of a singular service with 'all' the content is higher than a plurality of services each with only a little. In other words I'd happily pay more per month for the Spotify of TV, movies, and sports that I currently do for a sampling of the usual streaming services.

But yet people do not think that one place to get all of your apps for a device is okay. Which is it? One place to rule them all, or free for all?

False equivalency: Apps/programs are a la carte, TV / Music services are not. Accessing a secondary app 'store', e.g. EPIC to buy a game that is not on steam costs next to nothing, just a small time investment. Accessing a movie that isn't on Netflix is a pain in the ass and money.

Frankly if I was king of the world any and all licensing deals for media would have to be explicitly non-exclusive, effectively decoupling production from distribution. Any service should be able to stream/rent any media for the same rate as any other. This would let the market sort out what people value in terms of streaming 'packages'.

> Apps/programs are a la carte, TV / Music services are not.

Google Play Pass[0] is basically the app equivalent of Spotify. One monthly or annual fee for access to a library of "hundreds" of apps. And movies, TV shows, and music can all be purchased a la carte, not just through streaming subscriptions.

> Any service should be able to stream/rent any media for the same rate as any other.

Sounds good to me. I would also be fine with compulsory licensing for individual copies, or frankly just an end to copyright altogether.

[0] https://play.google.com/intl/en_us/about/play-pass/

Speaking as personal anecdota:

>Google Play Pass[0] is basically the app equivalent of Spotify. One monthly or annual fee for access to a library of "hundreds" of apps.

At the risk of dating myself, this is not a way I/my social circle consumes 'apps'[0]. But by the same token, if I were to subscribe to a service like MSFT's GamePass[1] personally I would find the most value in a service with everything, and be annoyed at having to juggle multiple subscriptions. The multiple services make it difficult and expensive to enjoy a breadth and diversity of media, regardless of total amount/quality consumed. For instance, imagine how obnoxious Spotify would be if it broke up into different services by genre.

By extension, I'd always pay more than my current given subset of subscriptions for an 'everything' service.

> And movies, TV shows, and music can all be purchased a la carte, not just through streaming subscriptions.

Certainly, but back when I purchased such things a la cart I'd have no problem cross shopping redbox/blockbuster/amazon. Probably because I only ever have to engage one and that engagement ends after the transaction, until re-initiated by myself. Maybe it's a psychological hangup, shrug.

[0]Not that I 'consume' many apps, or interact with the stores often. I think of them (sans games, and novelties) as little more than glorified websites. An 'app', as I use my phone, is just a glorified gateway to either data delivery (e.g. Netflix) or other backend traditionally and adequately served via website (e.g. google calendar)

[1]Google Stadia manages to be the worst of both worlds here, trying to be a service that also requires a la carte purchasing, instead of one or the other.

That's backwards - the reason music works well is that you can get all the music from Spotify or iTunes or Amazon or any other place you like. Having multiple app stores that all had all the apps and could actually compete with each other would improve the app experience.

You have me confused with the person I replied to. They stated "The value of a singular service with 'all' the content is higher than a plurality of services each with only a little." That's what I'm questioning, and you are as well except replying to me.