Spotify will launch in Germany tomorrow, the company has confirmed to Silicon Allee. The long-awaited move by the Swedish DRM-based music streaming service is sure to be a popular one with German music-lovers.
Spotify allows users to stream and listen to any of the more than 16 million available songs whenever they want. Because the music is played ‘live’, there is no need to wait for downloads of clog up your hard drive.
There are ten million active Spotify users around the world, of which some three million are paying customers. Germany will become the company’s 13th active country, and director of international growth Axel Bringeus told German magazine Focus: “Germany is the third largest music market in the world. As a Swedish company, we have long had Germany in our sights; it is Sweden’s second-biggest export market after Norway. We had to translate the website, set up a small team in Berlin, integrate new payment methods and we will also kick things off with some German partners.”
Bringeus refused to comment, however, on whether the delay in launching the service in Germany was related to the reportedly difficult negotiations with GEMA, a performance rights organisation which represents some 60,000 composers, authors and music publishers and the rights of more than a million copyright holders internationally whose works are used in Germany.
He did, however, reveal that Spotify has contracts with the four major labels – Universal, Sony, Warner and EMI – as well as most of the independent ones. He added: “In Germany there are 16 million songs in the Spotify catalogue; it would take you 100 years to listen to all of them…”
At least you can get cracking on that task from tomorrow!