HousePlanet.DJ - Your House Music News Portal - HousePlanet Distribution

http://www.wmg.com/

Read full article at: http://news.bbc.co.uk

Record label Warner Music has said it will stop licensing its songs to free music streaming services. Companies like Spotify, We7 and Last.fm give free, legal and instant access to millions of songs, funded by adverts. Warner, one of the four major labels, whose artists include REM and Michael Buble, said such services were "clearly not positive for the industry".
That raises questions over the future of free streaming, which is popular with fans but not lucrative for labels.
Warner chief executive Edgar Bronfman Jr said: "Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed.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."
It is not clear whether Warner will remove its music from existing services or decline to do deals with new outlets.
"The number of potential subscribers dwarfs the number of people who are actually purchasing music on iTunes," Mr Bronfman said.
The main legal streaming services have deals with most major and independent record labels and pay royalties for each song played. But the amount is far less than a label would earn if that song was downloaded or if they got a slice of a listener's monthly subscription.
Paul Brindley of digital music consultants Music Ally said the other major labels were unlikely to follow Warners' lead. "There's a fairly widespread suspicion that free streaming services just aren't ever going to make enough money," he said.