Warner Music To Cut Streaming?

Warner music are threatening to take their bat and ball and go home. They’ve said they may stop licensing their songs to free online streaming sites such as Spotify and We7. Chief executive, Edgar Bronfman, has said that allowing people to stream music for free on such sites was “clearly not positive for the industry”.

The company has stated that this will not affect deals currently in place; meaning tunes by artists such as Fleetwood Mac and Estelle will still be available on the likes of Spotify. Warner apparently doesn’t feel that ad-supported free services are a sustainable business model for the music biz.

Bronfman’s comments were in response to the latest figures which Tone Deaf reported on last week which indicated the label making a loss.

Bronfman isn’t too happy with the prospect of Spotify – currently only available in Europe – entering the US market. “The ‘get all your music you want for free, and then maybe with a few bells and whistles we can move you to a premium price strategy’, is not the kind of approach to business that we will be supporting in the future.” Bronfman hinted they may go up against iTunes by starting their own subscription service.