Free Streaming May Soon Be History..

2008 was the year of free streaming music. When MySpace Music entered the fray a little over a year ago, it seemed like the music labels had finally relented, and were willing to experiment with free streaming music to users. The future looked bright.

2009 is the year of reckoning. The European launch of Spotify, which offers users free streaming music on demand, was an affirmation of the trend. Soon Spotify would launch in the U.S., too, the company said.

Things are changing.

Spotify is now saying that they must delay their U.S. launch. They don’t want to launch here with a paid-only model, and the big labels are signaling that they won’t have it. From the NYTimes last month, quoting Sony Music: “We like Spotify as our partner in Europe, but we would like them to move more toward a paid subscription environment.”

And that isn’t the only bad news. MySpace Music is “almost certainly” going to…

Read the rest of the article on TechCrunch

Related posts:

1. Time to Invest In Customer Awareness.. Not Lawsuits or Draconian Measures
2. Britain Say Bye Bye to Free WiFi!
3. Music Industry: Too Greedy For Own Good (Whats new?)
4. Pirates Don’t Screw The Artists, Labels Screw The Artists
5. The Real Music Pirates…Rogues
6. Sony To Take On iTunes!
7. ‘Internet freedom’ act… not so free with 3 strikes still there