this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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Wow, you got back to me very quickly. So what did your musician friend say?
Ken Parks, CEO of Spotify, said “Piracy was sort of ingrained in that culture (in reference to pirating programs like Napster). But now Spotify is ingrained in that culture in a way that’s reduced piracy greatly. It’s removed the incentive to pirate.”
Spotify told British MPs in a parliamentary inquiry that raising its monthly subscription above £9.99 could “push users into piracy” using the piracy threat to resist price increases that would have meant higher royalties for artists.
Spotify was founded in 2008, a moment when the music industry had been devastated by online piracy. Revenue had already dropped from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion by 2008.
Spotify has since added filters that cut royalty payments to tracks that don’t reach a certain stream threshold, further adding pressure to smaller artists who had the least leverage to begin with.
The rise of piracy led directly to the creation and power of streaming services like Spotify. Need me to spell anything else out for you?
Edit: Waaaaaiting for a response!
All of my musician friends (3) do all their paid music creation live, and aren't on Spotify. So, they couldn't tell me their motivation for being on Spotify is; none of them have ever complained about piracy.
That's not the evidence I asked for, those are canned statement from Spotify. Do you believe everything Spotify says? They have misled people about their motives before.
Still, thanks for an least engaging with the premise.
Ratio. They don’t sound like very successful artists lmao
I wonder why they wouldn’t be on Spotify if it’s so good for artists? 🤔
Please explain what you mean by “canned statement” exactly? Is a factual statement not relevant if it comes from someone you don’t like?
By "canned" I mean "made palatable for the masses and packaged compactly".
Those statements aren't evidence any more than your claims are. For evidence, we would need some measurements of reality.
Spotify wouldn't be the first company to claim "piracy" as their motivation even tho their actions leave the rate of piracy virtually unchanged, so I do doubt their motivational claims. But, it's also not what I asked for. I want to see if there was an actual observable effect on piracy that has anything to do with Spotify.