SPOTIFY IS NOW A MUSIC-MAKING MARKETPLACE, AS IT BUYS NEW YORK-BASED SOUNDBETTER
For a long time, we’ve heard Spotify boss Daniel Ek discuss his ambitions for the service to become a true “two-sided marketplace” for artists. In layman’s terms, this means Spotify wants to provide tools for creators that improve the music they make (and the way they market it), as opposed to just giving fans the means to play their tracks. If Spotify can justifiably charge artists money to use these tools, Ek’s comments lead us to assume, then all the better. Last year, Ek’s aspiration for Spotify to become “two-sided” in this manner made a big step forward when the firm acquired part of Distrokid, and announced it was becoming a digital distributor in its own right. Those plans have since been scrapped. Today (September 12), however, Spotify has confirmed that it’s becoming a very different type of “two-sided” proposition – after buying New York-based SoundBetter, a freelance marketplace which allows creators to book exclusive contributions from producers, songwriters, ma...