Spotify Renegotiating Licensing Contracts ⇥ wsj.com

Hannah Karp, Wall Street Journal:

Spotify is now operating on short-term extensions of its old contracts with all three major record companies, having been on a month-to-month basis with at least one of the labels for nearly a year. It is negotiating new deals that would make its finances more attractive to investors.

Spotify, which saw its net loss increase to roughly $200 million last year even as revenue doubled to more than $2 billion, wants to pay a smaller share than the nearly 55% of its revenue that it currently pays to record labels and artists, according to people familiar with the matter.

Anyone blaming exclusives for the current state of the streaming industry has it all backwards. The current state of the music streaming industry is what has beget exclusives on better-paying platforms.