Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify:

First it was Napster. And the world was never the same again. The Internet user discovered that downloading a free copy of any song, by any author, was a matter of seconds. The recording industry began to tremble: the fever to possess had begun. Then it was iTunes. It became the digital music store. Apple's invention demonstrated to the trembling industry that Internet downloads also brought benefits.
Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon have convinced the industry that the future of music lies in access rather than possession. These two musicians and techno fans are the creators of Spotify, the latest phenomenon on the Internet.

Spotify is a music program. Another one. But incredibly fast and easy to use. Its interface is very similar to iTunes, but Spotify offers streaming music. Like so many. This means that the songs can be listened to for free from any computer connected to the Internet, but cannot be downloaded. Spotify, at the moment, is accessed by invitation. But it has already dazzled more than a million Internet users from nine countries, including Spain, five months after its launch.

Daniel Ek, 25 years old, who lives between London (Spotify headquarters) and Stockholm, his hometown, responded by email to a questionnaire for Ciberp@ís.

Ask. How would you define Spotify?

Answer. Spotify is a streaming music service. An instant, legal and easy-to-use service. In exchange for advertisements or by subscription, the Internet user has access to a huge catalog of music.

Q. How many songs are there and from what record labels?

A. We have agreements with Universal, Sony BMG, Emi Music, Warner Bros, Merlin, The Orchard, CD Baby, Naxos and INgrooves. Our music catalog is very extensive and our dream is to collect all the music in the world. I don't know the exact number of tracks available, but we have licensed millions of songs and are still working to add more to the system. Every day 10.000 new songs enter.

Q. Why did you opt for a streaming model and not a download model?

A. There are several reasons, but the main one is that we wanted a high-quality product. Also because we are convinced that the future of music lies in access rather than ownership.Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon founded Spotify with the goal of "helping as many people as possible listen to all kinds of music, whenever and wherever." want". Convinced that what they had in mind was a good idea, they paid out of pocket for the first two years of the company. Today they employ 70 people, are based in London and Stockholm and have been financed since the autumn by investors Northzone and Creandum.

Both entrepreneurs are, in addition to musicians, passionate about technology. And they share two hobbies: "listening to music and solving problems," says Ek, 25 years old.

Looking to remedy, with Spotify they intend to solve the disaster of an industry, the music industry, that did not know how to see the inevitable: the Internet and mobile phones are powerful platforms for marketing all types of content.

"If you go back in time you see that record companies started selling vinyl, then cassettes and then CDs, but they were always based on a retail model. In the post-P2P era two things were obvious to me: on the one hand , people consumed more music than ever and from a great diversity of artists; on the other hand, the influences of what people listened to came more from friends than from radio stations. In other words, they consumed music like crazy - the underlying demand was greater than ever. -, but they didn't necessarily pay for it. We created Spotify with a double objective: to meet this huge demand for content and, at the same time, guarantee a revenue system that worked," says Ek.

Ask. What is your business model?

Answer. We have three. The free version, which the vast majority of people access, contains some short ads. The Premium version, for 11 euros per month, comes without advertising; and the 15-hour pass for 24 euros is intended for celebrating parties and events.

Q. How do you resolve the payment of copyrights to artists and record companies?

A. We don't go into details about label deals, but it's important to us to adequately compensate labels and artists for their work. From day one we have worked closely to ensure that everyone gets their fair share. We compensate artists based on how often their music is played on Spotify.

Q. They declare themselves against piracy. Even more: they consider illegal downloads to be their competitors. Do you think your service can put an end to this practice in the world?

A. We are creating something much better than piracy and by doing this we believe we can convert many fans of illegal alternatives into users of legal alternatives.

Q. Do you think that the content payment model on the Internet is dead?

A. Spotify is about giving access to content rather than owning it. We believe people will pay to have the ability to access the music they love, whenever and wherever they want. People don't care about owning or downloading songs. What you want is access to them.

Q. No restrictions?

A. No restrictions. On Spotify you can listen to your favorite songs unlimitedly.

Q. Since it is streaming, it requires an Internet connection to work. People also like to listen to music while walking down the street, in the car... Do you plan to launch a similar service for mobile phones?

A. I can't give details, but we are working on multiple ways to integrate the service into other platforms and devices. It's something we're excited to investigate.

Q. Who are your legal competitors?

A. Depending on who we talk to, they compare us with one or another. In Britain with Last.fm, although it is more of a community built around a social network. You get musical recommendations and you can also listen to the ones your friends like. In France they compare us to Deezer, and in the United States they see us similar to Raphsody and Napster. I honestly believe that we do not have a direct competitor since at this level no one is offering what we do: a model based on subscription and advertising at the same time. This is the big difference.

Q. Spotify is a very fast service. What technology does it have behind it?

A. The technology is a hybrid between a centralized system and a P2P network. The most popular content is served by P2P networks and the most minority content is served by central servers. This ensures quick access to all songs, not just the most popular ones, across the service. In five months Spotify has seduced a million people.