Spotify’s New Licensing Deal Eases Path to Going Public -<br />By BEN SISARIOAPRIL 4, 2017<br />After two years of on-and-off negotiations, Spotify and the world’s biggest record company have finally agreed to a licensing deal<br />that paves the way for Spotify to go public and gives the music industry more flexibility in how new albums are streamed.<br />The Universal deal includes a concession that the music industry has long sought,<br />and which Spotify has fought hard against: The service will now let Universal and its artists withhold new releases for two weeks from its free tier, which pays far lower royalties than the paid version.<br />The streaming music company, which has been valued by investors at more than $8 billion, has by far the largest service of its kind, with 50 million paying subscribers<br />and at least another 50 million who listen to music on Spotify’s free tier, which has advertising.<br />But without contracts in place guaranteeing the presence of the music on its service — Universal controls around a third<br />of all music sales around the world — the company would have difficulty attracting investors on the public markets.
