Spotify has purchased a minority stake in music distribution service DistroKid. This is an important development for artists who learned last month that they can now upload music directly to the Swedish streaming service.
Details of the investment are scarce in the blog post announcing the partnership, but it reveals more about Spotify’s direction since it listed on the NYSE in April. The expansion into connecting with artists more than merely labels or listeners invites undiscovered and beginning producers to a global market.
Spotify had previously been criticized for the announcement in September about artists directly uploading their own music. Since there are plenty of other platforms and competitors, there was no real attraction to use this feature. DistroKid completely changes the game.
“We’ll get your music into iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon, Google Play, Tidal, iHeartRadio, YouTube, Deezer and 150+ other stores & streaming services.” – DISTROKID
Before the investment, artists could upload music to a service like DistroKid to distribute their music. The integration with uploads to Spotify means that anything uploaded to Spotify will automatically be distributed to all other platforms, creating a one-stop shop and strengthening Spotify’s position in the market.
When Spotify first revealed its financials, it showed the company has been running at a net loss every year. More strategic investments like this indicate a deliberate move to find more sources of income, especially after we learned the premium service subscriber number may be overinflated.
With tons of places for young and beginner artists to upload their music like Soundcloud, Youtube and Apple Music, this partnership between Spotify and DistroKid is really catering to everyone.
